Mistreatment and Exploitation of Skilled Foreign Workers through H- Visa Precarity
![handle is hein.journals/hastlj74 and id is 585 raw text is:
Mistreatment and Exploitation
of Skilled Foreign Workers
Through H- Visa Precarity
ISHA VAZIRANIt
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that beginning on May 26, 2015,
certain H-4 dependents of H-1B nonimmigrants would be eligible to apply for an Employment
Authorization Document (EAD). The H-4 EAD program was the target of several threats and
changes under the Trump Administration, which made it increasingly difficult for H-4 EAD
holders to maintain uninterrupted employment authorization. These difficulties prompted
several lawsuits against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), under DHS.
USCISfavorably settled one such class-action lawsuit. Still, the H-4 EAD program remains only
precariously in place because it was never officially codi fied and exists within a system ofskilled
immigration into the United States that has continually exploited highly skilled foreign workers,
the majority of whom come from the economically disadvantaged Global South. This Note
examines the instability propagated by the H-1B visa category to show that the system ofskilled
immigration into the United States subjects workers to precarity as a result of their transientH-
1 status, increased employer control over workers' immigration status, and the potential for
wage theft. Additionally, many recent threats to the H-4 EAD and the program's vulnerability
to future manipulation indicate EAD holders' susceptibility to further abuse.
[583]
t J.D. Candidate 2023, University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC
Hastings); Articles Editor, Hastings Law Journal. My heartfelt thanks to Professor Veena Dubal for guidance
and feedback as I worked on this Note. Many thanks also to the Hastings Law Journal editors for all their work
in preparing this Note for publication. And huge thanks to my family, for everything.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hastlj74&div=18&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Mistreatment and Exploitation of Skilled Foreign Workers through H- Visa Precarity
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