How will H4 EAD affect the residency process for visa requiring IMGs?

Its advantage time for H4 holders.

This article is to see what might transpire for the next couple of match cycles with the US government passing the rule where H4 visa holders(spouse of H1b) will be legally allowed to work in USA until their spouse gets green card. These people will be given EAD(employment authorization) card which basically means they can work anywhere without any restrictions(literally).

So what is the big fuss about it? The Department of state will start to roll out these EAD starting May 26. Applying for EAD will take about 3 months which means by September 15, 2015, most of H4 holders will have EAD and apply for ERAS mentioning that "They dont need visa sponsorship".

Here is where I think the trouble starts for applicants who wont be having H4 EAD. This will purely affect 1000s and 1000s of applicants who require either J1 or H1b to do residency here. These H4 EAD will be considered as equivalent to green card holders and american citizens and these applicants will be considered as US IMGs (visa requiring candidates are referred as non US IMGs). This will mean that a significant increase in their residency chances. It is well known fact that green card holders have a slight edge over visa requiring candidates in residency applications.

1. Some programs are exclusively for non visa requiring candidates ( UT austin, San antonio, aurora healthcare, few west coast programs).
2. Even in visa sponsoring IMG friendly programs, the fact that these EAD holders dont need visa may make those programs rank them higher because they dont have to spend for H1b or go through ECFMG hassles for J1. A typical H1 visa takes about 6000 USD for the program which is a huge amount.
3. Score requirements and research requirements are lighter for EAD holders than visa requiring candidates
4. These persons will hold competitive edge when they apply for fellowships too.

 Another advantage of this H4 EAD is that these applicants can go and do observerships, research appointments anywhere without the hassles of visa. They can stay in this country indefinitely and have no restrictions.

All this means that H4 holders have a very big advantage over visa requiring IMGs. My estimates is that there are at least 2000 H4 holders in this country who will be applying. Obviously not everyone will get residency in first go. I estimate that this will definitely affect the residency process at least for the next 2 residency cycles(match 2016 and match 2017). This does not mean doom for visa requiring IMGs. It means the better visa requiring candidates may be the ones who will match in their first application cycle. More and more visa requiring candidates may go unmatched in one cycle and need to strengthen CV to apply for next ones.

Why US government is doing all this to make life harder for visa requiring people? Well these H4 holders have been waiting for a long time for this EAD. They have been confined to home, ineligible to work anywhere while their husbands worked in large tech companies. This rule applies to all H1 holders regardless of their profession. US govt sees these h4 holders as ahead in the immigration process than the new comers.

Also to remember, not all H4 visa holders will be eligible to apply. In a long green card process, spouse of H4 holders should have crossed a certain stage in that process to be eligible for EAD.

My prediction may not pan out entirely the same way but I believe this will definitely be an issue for visa requiring candidates going forward. Until most of these h4 holders get their residency, it will be a tougher life for the other candidates.

So go back to your basics and prepare harder, score even higher, utilize time to do research and get good LORs. Good IMG candidates will always be in demand.

questions and comments -
https://www.facebook.com/karthikragu2014

Good luck
Karthik