Business Immigration Insights

Following the settlement of a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) lawsuit that finally recognizes that dependent L and E spouses are able to work lawfully incident to their status, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) updated its admission system to designate on the I-94 admission records those spouses who are authorized to work without applying for an EAD.  L and E spouses should be admitted with an “S” after their status to indicate that they are spouses authorized to work.  The new I-94s do not explicitly state “work authorized”, but the “S” designation tells employers for I-9 purposes that they are authorized to work for the validity of their I-94s.