Business Immigration Insights

In the newest sequel to the Shergill v. Mayorkas settlement, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has now updated its Policy Manual to address documents that E and L nonimmigrant spouses may show their employers to prove their work eligibility.

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. 

Starting in May 2019, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will issue I-94 numbers with letters in addition to numbers. The new format will include nine numbers, followed by one letter and one number. Current I-94 numbers also have eleven characters, but only numbers. Examples of new I-94 numbers include: 111111111A1; 000000001B2; 123456789C3. I-94s in the current number-only format will remain valid through the listed “Admit Until Date”.

As a reminder, an I-94 record not only documents a foreign national’s current nonimmigrant status, but also governs the amount of time ...

This information updates our original post of April 9, 2015.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”), which controls admission of travelers to the United States, maintains more than 70 “Deferred Inspection” offices where travelers may request correction of  I-94 Arrival Records they believe were issued incorrectly.