Intel Corporation came out strongly in the favor of the proposal from the DHS that would grant ability to work to spouses of H-1B employees.

The world’s largest chipmaker is one of the largest users of H-1B visas in the country and says enabling employees’ spouses to work would be an important benefit for its workers.

“Intel puts great effort and resources into attracting highly skilled workers. American and foreign-born alike, these engineers and scientists play a vital role in… creating new and groundbreaking technologies that we develop here in the United States… But in an increasingly competitive global marketplace for talent our nation’s outdated immigration laws hamper our ability to attract and retain key employees,” Muller continued. “One example is the rule that spouses and dependents of an employee on an H-1B visa are not authorized to work until that employee achieves a permanent work visa – a process that can take as many as 10 years.” Intel immigration policy director Peter Muller wrote in a corporate blog post Wednesday.

In a letter to DHS supporting the change, Intel wrote that the proposed rule should do more and authorize children of H-1B employees to work, too.

Intel received 1,455 new and renewed H-1B visas in 2012, equivalent to 3 percent of its total U.S. work force. (The visas aren’t broken out by state, but roughly a third of Intel’s workers in this country are in Oregon.) Intel says it needs those visas because it can’t find enough workers with advanced technical skills in the United States.

Technology companies, like Intel, have benefitted greatly from immigration and it is good to see them actively defending their businesses, their customers, their industries and their workforces, by promoting immigration reform.

http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2014/07/intel_let_spouses_for_h-1b_emp.html