Washington, Oct 13 (IANS): The Trump administration has moved to scrap a rule that lets H-1B and other skilled foreign workers routinely win extensions when their facts have not changed, and has made permanent a separate rule ending automatic renewals of work permits for spouses of H-1B workers and others.
Both measures, issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), were posted for public inspection at the Federal Register on Tuesday and are scheduled to be published on Wednesday.
Indians account for the bulk of H-1B visa holders and of H-4 spouses with work permits, and are expected to be among the most affected.
In the first, a proposed rule, DHS “proposes to remove 8 CFR 214.1(c)(5), which generally provides that USCIS gives deference to a prior approval involving the same facts when adjudicating a request to extend a petition for an alien’s employment or stay.”
The provision covers extension petitions for workers such as those on H-1B and L-1 visas. It was codified in a rule published in December 2024, in the final weeks of the Biden administration.
DHS said the change “would better align DHS regulations with the statute, which places the burden of proving eligibility for all immigration benefits on the petitioner, applicant, or beneficiary.”
The department said that in practice “the deference regulation and policy effectively shift the burden from the petitioner to the USCIS officer to justify departing from a prior approval.”
It said the policy risked “potentially perpetuating erroneous prior approvals and creating an environment in which fraudulent and meritless petitions are less likely to be detected.”
DHS cited USCIS site-visit data. For H-1B extension cases from fiscal 2022 through 2025, when deference applied, the combined rate of non-compliance and/or fraud among sites visited was 22.39 per cent. During fiscal 2018 through 2020, when USCIS had a no-deference policy, it was 16.77 per cent.
For L-1A extension cases, the rate was 24.46 per cent in fiscal 2022-2025, against 18.37 per cent in fiscal 2018-2020.
According to USCIS data in the proposal, an average of 208,429 extension petitions a year over fiscal 2022-2025 were of the kind to which deference generally applies, about 30 per cent of the 688,830 petitions filed annually.
The public will have 30 days after publication to comment.
The second measure is a final rule that “reaffirms and finalises” an interim rule DHS published on October 30, 2025. That rule ended the practice of automatically extending employment authorisation documents (EADs) for people who had filed on time to renew them in certain categories. The final rule takes effect on publication.
Earlier, a timely renewal application could keep a work permit valid for up to 540 days while it was pending.
DHS said ending automatic extensions “enhances benefit integrity and prioritises the proper vetting and screening of aliens before granting a new period of employment authorisation.”
Many commenters had objected on behalf of H-4 spouses of H-1B workers. They said H-4 EAD processing times “frequently exceed the recommended filing time of 180 days” and warned of “unavoidable work gaps”, lost health insurance and possible eviction. Some noted that women “make up most H-4 EAD holders.”
In response, DHS said the rule “does not change the underlying eligibility of H-4, L-2, or other employment-based dependents to apply for employment authorisation.”
It acknowledged that “affected dependents and adjustment applicants may experience temporary lapses in employment authorisation and associated impacts on income, benefits, and career continuity.”
But it said automatic extensions for these groups “present the same underlying security and program integrity concerns” as for other categories.
DHS estimated that 20,000 to 33,000 EADs could lapse in a single 18-month window starting in May 2027. It put the cost at $138.1 million in lost productivity for employers and $312.1 million from potential labour turnover over that period, with about 1,700 to 2,800 employers affected.
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