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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Friday, May 29, 2015

How U.S. Court Ruling on Immigration Reforms Affects H1-B Holders

Wall Street Journal
By Dhanya Ann Thoppil
May 29, 2015

Does this week’s federal court ruling upholding a stay on some of President Barrack Obama’s immigration reform plans affect changes for those on high-skilled worker visas in the United States?
 
The short answer is no.
 
The court’s decision stops the Obama administration from proceeding with its plan to allow more than four million people residing in the country illegally to apply for deferred deportation and work authorizations, among other benefits. The administration says it will continue to pursue a separate legal appeal to try to move forward with the plans.
 
Tuesday’s ruling though will not affect initiatives for skilled workers, because the lawsuit only pertained to the program that shielded millions from deportation, said Scott J. FitzGerald, a partner at U.S.-based international law firm Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLP.
 
The president in November bypassed Congress to unveil the immigration reforms.
 
The changes included allowing the spouses of certain H1-B visa holders to work in the U.S., reducing the time taken to issue green cards and issuing guidelines on how to successfully apply for an L-1 visa used by employers for intra-company employee transfers.
 
The president’s basket of executive actions was welcomed by India’s outsourcing technology industry, which earns billions of dollars sending Indian engineers and programmers to the U.S. and has been demanding America raise the ceiling on the number of skilled-worker visas it issues every year.
 
Some of the measures announced under the reforms have already been rolled out. A rule that allows people with H-4, dependent-spouse visas with partners seeking employment-based, permanent residence status, to work in the U.S., came into effect earlier this week.
 
In April, a group of technology workers under the banner Save Jobs, USA, filed a preliminary injunction in a federal court in Columbia seeking to block the new rule that allows H-4 spouses to work in the U.S. The lawsuit alleged that the U.S. department of labor has no statutory authority to allow foreigners to work on H-4 visas and has circumvented the rules.
 
The court denied the motion earlier this week.

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

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