Let L-2 and E Spouses Work without an Employment Authorization Document
USCIS should expressly authorize employment for L-2 and E spouses without requiring the spouse to apply for an employment authorization document.
The L-1 visa category allows multinational companies to transfer certain skilled foreign employees to the United States, such as managers, executives, and skilled workers with specialized knowledge. The E visa allows similar categories of foreign nationals from countries where the United States has “a treaty of commerce and navigation” to carry out substantial trade (E-1), develop and direct the operations of a business (E-2), or perform services in a specialty occupation if from Australia (E-3). The law entitles the spouses of these workers to derivative status,[i] and it requires that USCIS “authorize the alien spouse to engage in employment in the United States and provide the spouse with an ‘employment authorized’ endorsement or other appropriate work
President Trump restricted legal immigration through a series of unprecedented regulations and presidential orders during his one term. Once President‐elect Joe Biden takes office, he will have the opportunity to reverse these actions and deregulate what is and was even before Trump an overly burdensome and expensive legal immigration system. This compendium of 30 concise proposals by 15 authors including several of America’s leading immigration law experts can help the Biden administration operate the immigration system as openly and efficiently as the laws allow.
These proposals focus entirely on agency measures to improve the process for legal immigrants. Keeping with Biden’s campaign theme of “building back better,” they look past simply repealing Trump’s misguided executive actions to instead create new, better rules for a fully recovered America. For this reason, these reforms do not address temporary actions needed only to address COVID-19 nor do they specifi