A U.S. appeals court panel upheld a federal regulation on Friday allowing the spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the country, despite a recent Supreme Court decision limiting the powers of federal agencies.
The H-1B visa program, designed for highly skilled foreign professionals, is extensively used by the U.S. technology sector to fill roles requiring specialized training or education. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that federal immigration law grants the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broad authority to regulate visa holder conditions.
Prominent tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft had supported the 2015 rule, arguing that allowing H-1B spouses to work encourages skilled workers to seek permanent residency through green cards, aiding in the retention of highly qualified employees.
The District of Columbia Circuit’s decision upheld a federal judge’s ruling dismissing a 2015 lawsuit by Save Jobs USA, which represents former Southern California Edison employees who claimed they were replaced by immigrant workers. The court found the lawsuit challenging the rule’s legality similar to a 2022 DC Circuit case that upheld a regulation allowing foreign students to work in the U.S. after their studies.
Save Jobs USA argued that the 2022 ruling was incorrect and irrelevant to their case, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo that limited federal agency powers. The Supreme Court’s ruling eliminated the “Chevron deference,” which had required courts to defer to reasonable federal agency interpretations of ambiguous laws.
However, the DC Circuit determined that its 2022 decision did not rely solely on Chevron but had independently found the challenged rule to be clearly authorized by federal law, a conclusion that also applied to the regulation in Friday’s decision.
