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Immigration News Briefs

Provided by Humera Subhani

December 2021

Change in work permit rules for H4/L2 spouses

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and its litigation partners (Wasden Banias and Steven Brown) made a settlement with DHS in Shergill, et al. v. Mayorkas, which provides structural changes for nonimmigrant H-4 and L-2 spouses suffering from longdelayed processing times for the processing of applications for employment authorization. The litigation successfully achieved the reversal of USCIS policy that prohibited H-4 spouses from benefiting from automatic extension of their employment authorization during the pendency of standalone employment authorization document (EAD) applications. The parties’ agreement will further result in a massive change in position for USCIS, which now recognizes that L-2 spouses enjoy automatic work authorization incident to status, meaning these spouses of executive and managers will no longer have to apply for employment authorization prior to working in the United States.

Attorney Jon Wasden stated, “After years of outreach to the agency, it became clear that litigation was unfortunately necessary. Despite the plain statutory language, USCIS failed to grant employment authorization incident to status for L-2s. The other issue relates to H-4s whose work permits expire prior to their H-4 status; this is a group that always met the regulatory test for automatic extension of EADs, but the agency previously prohibited them from that benefit and forced them to wait for reauthorization. People were suffering. They were losing their high-paying jobs for absolutely no legitimate reason, causing harm to them and U.S. businesses. So, while I’m glad the agency finally followed the law, it is frankly frustrating that an easily fixable issue took this long to address.”

Vaccine mandates imposed, travel ban lifted

Beginning November 8, the Biden Administration is rescinding the Covid-19 related travel restrictions and requiring nearly all nonimmigrant international air travelers to be fully vaccinated before being admitted to the U.S.

Prior to boarding a flight bound for the U.S., a foreign national will be required to provide proof of full vaccination against Covid. A nonimmigrant is considered fully vaccinated if any one of the following requirements is met:

2 weeks (14 days) after a dose of an accepted singledose Covid-19 vaccine

2 weeks (14 days) after the second dose of an accepted 2-dose series Covid-19 vaccine

2 weeks (14 days) after the full series of an “active” (not placebo) Covid-19 vaccine in the U.S. based AstraZeneca or Novavax Covid-19 vaccine trials

2 weeks (14 days) after 2 doses of any “mix-and match” combination of accepted Covid-19 vaccines administered at least 17 days apart

Lawful permanent residents and those traveling on an immigrant visa are not covered by the presidential proclamation. There are also exceptions to this requirement. However, if an unvaccinated nonimmigrant is admitted to the U.S. under one of the exceptions, based on the exception, he/she may be subject to a number of additional requirements, including testing, self-quarantine and self-isolation. Also, if the individual intends to remain in the U.S. for longer than 60 days, that person may be required to get vaccinated.

APPLICATION FINAL ACTION DATES FOR DECEMBER 2021

FAMILY	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	01Dec14	01Dec14
2A	Current	Current
2B	22Sep15	22Sep15
3rd	22Nov08	22Nov08
4th	15Sep05	22Mar07

EMPLOYMENT	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	Current	Current
2nd	01May12	Current
3rd	15Jan12	Current
Other	15Jan12	Current
4th	Current	Current
5th	Current	Current1B

DATES FOR FILING VISA APPLICATIONS - DECEMBER 2021

FAMILY	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	15May16	15May16
2A	01Sep21	01Sep21
2B	22Sep16	22Sep16
3rd	22Aug09	22Aug09
4th	01Jan06	01Oct07

EMPLOYMENT	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	Current	Current
2nd	08Jul13	Current
3rd	22Jan12	Current
Other	22Jan12	Current
4th	Current	Current
5th	Current	Current1B