The United States has several types of “H‑class” visas that allow foreigners to enter the country as temporary workers. Most of these workers receive either an H‑1 visa to work in occupations that require a college degree or an H‑2 visa to work in agriculture. If the worker’s spouse or children wish to accompany the worker to the country, they can apply for an H‑4 visa.

In a throwback to 1950s-era household division of labor, the legislation creating H‑visas allows an H‑1 visa holder—typically male—to work, but not the H‑4 visa spouse. This can create problems in current H‑1 households, where the spouse usually has a college degree as well and dual incomes are desired.

The government recognized this problem and in 2015 the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a rule allowing H‑4 visa holders to apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD). The agency’s justification for the rule was that it would

support the goals of attracting and retaining highly skilled foreign workers and … ameliorate certain disincentives for talented H‑1B nonimmigrants to permanently remain in the United States, [while bringing] U.S. immigration policies … more in line with those of other countries that are also competing to attract and retain similar highly skilled workers.

Since then, over 120,000 H‑4 visa holders have received work permits and around 90,000 are currently employed. Over 90% of these EAD recipients are from India.

In 2017 the Trump administration announced that it intended to repeal the rule providing this work authorization, arguing that doing so would create more jobs for U.S. citizens. However, its Department of Homeland Security could never provide sufficient justification for the rule change. It was still pending in January 2021 when Joe Biden took office and withdrew the proposed repeal. Currently, H‑4 visa holders can still receive an EAD.

There are three reasons why this status quo is undesirable. First, the rule allowing these applications is under legal attack, and it may not survive the various court challenges it is now facing. Second, the mere fact that the rule authorizing H‑4 EADs is under legal attack imposes a risk on H‑1 households, in part undermining the goals that the USCIS cited in making the rule. And third, the current requirement that each H‑4 must file an application to receive an EAD creates a significant amount of unnecessary red tape.

Good idea? / In 2018 I helped survey nearly 5,000 H‑4 visa holders. (See “Hurting Americans in Order to Hurt Foreign Workers,” Spring 2019.) We found that they are a highly educated and highly skilled population. Over 90% were female, over 99% had college degrees, and nearly 60% had a master’s degree, doctorate, or other professional or postgraduate degree. Of those who were employed, nearly two-thirds were in STEM occupations: science, technology, engineering, or math, and most of the rest were in business, finance, management, or health care, with an average income of $77,000. Even before worker shortages became widespread across the economy, H‑4 EAD holders were predominantly filling positions where there was a high demand for their skills.

Economic research consistently shows that skilled foreign workers boost overall economic activity, creating more opportunities and jobs for both skilled and unskilled domestic workers. Employing a computer programmer in Dallas, rather than outsourcing that job to Mumbai, ensures that most of that programmer’s income will be spent here in the United States, supporting domestic jobs in retail, personal services, recreation, health care, and a variety of other fields. It also ensures that the employee pays U.S. taxes at the federal, state, and local level.

We also found that about 2 percent of working H‑4 EAD holders were self-employed, operating businesses that employed both themselves and others. These self-employed people reported an average income of about $60,000 a year and five employees.

What’s more, our survey revealed that the access to an EAD had a major effect on these families’ willingness to remain in the United States. Two themes arose repeatedly: spouses who were not permitted to work were dissatisfied while those who did work invested their EAD-based income in homeownership, cars, or their businesses, thereby boosting the U.S. economy.

In addition, many who had not yet gotten an EAD reported that they intended to do so, both to help support their families and maintain the career skills they had developed in their home country. Overall, it is clear the rule allowing H‑4 EADs does indeed “support the goals of attracting and retaining highly skilled foreign workers”—both the highly skilled H‑4 workers and their H‑1 spouses.

A bipartisan bill introduced last April by Reps. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D–GA) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R–FL) called the “H‑4 Work Authorization Act” would have granted H‑4 visa holders automatic work authorization without needing to apply for an EAD. It would have made the work authorization “incident to status,” that is, directly resulting from their gaining H‑4 status. Hopefully, similar legislation will move in the new Congress. Such legislation would ensure that the ability of H‑4 visa holders to work would no longer be subject to the vicissitudes of any administration that might be hostile to foreign workers.