Chatter And Banter - Politics In North America

You made a good point. You shouldn't have deleted your post. : )

 

It is an immigrant nation, people become citizens by marriage, or get GC's through the H-1B, E-2, or L-1B visas. Once an H1B, E2 or L1B visa person gets a GC, he/she and spouse can work in any job and all these folks are potentially taking away jobs from people who were citizens by birth. All this is true.

The question is why should a certain category of H4 visa holders be allowed to work after spouse has approved I-140 or PERM? What was the reasoning behind the 2015 rule change? This is a real question, not asking to make a point. I have read reasons like "too long wait otherwise due to backlogs", "wasted potential", "not working leads to mental stress", "can be better off contributing to society." I couldn't find any of these sufficient reason enough to change the rule from as it existed before 2015.

The USCIS gives the following as one reason for the proposed rule change that will no longer allow a category of H4's to work:

Some U.S. workers would benefit from this proposed rule by having a better chance at obtaining jobs that some of the population of the H-4 workers currently hold, as the proposed rule would no longer allow H-4 workers to enter the labor market early.​

So, why should H4's with approved I-140 or PERM be allowed to enter the labor market earlier than they would be able to before 2015? More so, when that labor market includes jobs that are not suffering from insufficient Americans available.