On September 10, 2026, Judge David O. Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted a preliminary injunction to seven H-4 visa holders who challenged the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end automatic extensions of Employment Authorization Documents. The case is Jane Doe 1 et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 8:26-cv-00060.
The ruling is a meaningful victory, but it is also narrow by design. Here is what the court decided, why it matters, and what it does and doesn’t change for the broader H-4 community.
The legal team behind the case
This case was spearheaded by Jonathan Wasden of Wasden Law, working alongside California lead counsel Justin Tseng of the Law Offices of Justin Tseng. Wasden is no stranger to this fight. He was part of the team behind the Edakunni class action on behalf of H-4 and L-2 EAD applicants, the litigation that ultimately produced the auto-extension rule this new case sought to protect. His background includes serving at the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation, defending the very agencies he now litigates against, as well as at the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office. From the outset, his stated goal was to have the rule vacated nationwide and automatic extensions restored. The arguments his team developed, especially the focus on the government’s continuous vetting systems, became central pillars of the court’s reasoning.
How we got here?
H-4 visa holders are the spouses of H-1B workers. They cannot work in the U.S. without an EAD, and since 2015, a USCIS rule has allowed certain H-4 spouses to obtain one. The court noted that H-4 holders are an unusually well-educated group: most have at least a bachelor’s degree, and about 40% hold a graduate degree.
The trouble has always been timing. An H-4 EAD renewal depends on the H-1B spouse’s own extension, so any delay upstream cascades down. After a period of severe processing slowdowns, including a biometrics requirement that the court described as making appointments “nearly impossible,” H-4 holders sued in Edakunni v. Mayorkas. The government settled, and it later adopted an auto-extension rule allowing up to 540 days of continued work authorization while a timely-filed renewal was pending. That rule was made permanent in December 2024 and, per the complaint, worked well at preventing gaps in employment.
Then, on October 30, 2025, DHS issued an interim final rule (IFR) eliminating the automatic extension altogether, effective immediately and without the usual notice-and-comment period. DHS cited national security: renewal applicants might continue working before vetting was complete. Its lead example was the June 2025 Boulder, Colorado attack, carried out by an asylum applicant whose EAD had been auto-extended.
What did the court decide?
Judge Carter was careful to frame the case as a question of procedure rather than immigration policy. He acknowledged that every administration can set its own priorities and that agency decisions can legitimately be shaped by politics. The problem, he wrote, was that the government did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act.
The emergency exception wasn’t justified. Agencies can skip notice-and-comment only for “good cause,” which the Ninth Circuit treats as a high bar reserved for real emergencies. DHS offered two theories. The first was a “midnight rush”: announcing the rule in advance would prompt a wave of renewal filings. The court held that this is essentially the same argument the Ninth Circuit rejected in the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant cases, since nearly every proposed rule gives people time to act before it takes effect. The second theory rested on the Boulder attack. The court found that a single incident was not enough, and more fundamentally, that there was no logical connection between the attacker’s work authorization and the violence. If someone is a threat, the court reasoned, the concern is their presence in the country, which the IFR does nothing to address.
The foreign affairs exception didn’t apply either. DHS argued that employment authorization affects money moving across borders. The court called this a stretch, noting that by the same logic, the government could skip public comment on rules affecting U.S. citizens whose wages sometimes leave the country.
DHS ignored its own vetting tools. Plaintiffs pointed to two existing systems, ATLAS and Continuous Immigration Vetting (CIV), that allow the government to screen people on an ongoing basis rather than only when they file an application. The IFR never explained why those systems were insufficient. Because agencies must consider obvious alternatives and explain why they reject them, this omission weighed heavily against the government.
Reliance interests were acknowledged but not truly weighed. To DHS’s credit, the IFR did recognize that H-4 spouses, their families and their employers had come to rely on auto-extensions. But the court found that recognition was essentially on paper only: by ignoring alternatives like continuous vetting that could have reduced the harm, DHS showed that reliance interests were not actually a factor in its decision.
The harm is real and can’t be undone later. Because money damages generally aren’t available in APA cases, lost wages count as irreparable harm. The court went further, noting that a lapse in employment can stall a career, reduce future earning potential and make employers wary of hiring EAD holders at all.
The public interest favored the plaintiffs. Following the Ninth Circuit, the court held that the public interest is served by agencies following proper procedure, regardless of how the rule might ultimately turn out. It added that H-4 holders have already been vetted, can be continuously vetted, and are likely to contribute positively when allowed to work.
The court also rejected DHS’s argument that federal immigration law (8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)) stripped it of jurisdiction, explaining that reading the statute that way would shield a huge swath of immigration regulations from APA review.
What does the relief actually cover?
This is the part H-4 families should read closely. The court did not restore the automatic extension rule for everyone. Instead, it set aside the IFR only as to the seven named plaintiffs, and said the government may comply by giving them EADs valid for as long as the case continues. Earlier in the case, the court had also entered a separate order barring adverse immigration action against the named plaintiffs.
For anyone who isn’t one of those seven people, the IFR remains in effect today.
Why so narrow?
Judge Carter explained his reasoning openly. The case turns mostly on legal questions that are ready for appellate review, and he wanted a higher court to weigh in before any nationwide injunction was issued. To that end, he certified the order for immediate appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).
He also left a door open. If the government chooses not to appeal, the plaintiffs can renew their request for nationwide relief, and the court said it would consider that request knowing the government passed on the chance to challenge the ruling.
This approach fits the broader judicial climate. Since the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA curtailed universal injunctions, district courts have been more cautious about sweeping relief, although that decision left open questions about remedies under the APA. Nothing in Judge Carter’s order says he was required to limit relief; it reads as a deliberate choice about how best to get the issue before an appellate court.
A contrast: the F-1 duration of status case
Just four days later, a different court took a broader path. On September 14, 2026, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the District of Massachusetts entered a nationwide preliminary injunction barring DHS and ICE from implementing the rule ending “duration of status” for F-1, J-1 and I nonimmigrants while the litigation proceeds. The court found that the government’s national security justification for that rule was arbitrary and capricious.
The two cases differ in important ways. The D/S suit was brought by a coalition of labor unions and higher education organizations representing large numbers of affected people, and it challenged a final rule that was about to take effect for an entire population. Doe v. DHS was brought by seven individuals, and the judge explicitly chose to prioritize appellate review before going further. Both, however, reflect courts looking skeptically at national security rationales offered without much supporting evidence.
What does this mean for H-4 spouses now?
If you are an H-4 EAD holder who isn’t one of the seven plaintiffs, this ruling does not extend to you automatically, and the auto-extension remains gone for now. To obtain similar relief today, affected H-4 spouses would need to file their own individual lawsuits. That route has been working: Wasden has observed that the government has tended to resolve such cases by issuing EAD cards rather than fighting them in court. That’s a great result for individuals, though it makes broader relief for the H-4 community harder to secure. His advice is blunt: people really have to start advocating for themselves early on. Filing renewals as early as the rules allow also remains critical.
Beyond individual relief, this ruling offers a detailed judicial roadmap of the IFR’s weaknesses, particularly the good-cause analysis and the failure to address continuous vetting, that other litigants can build on.
The next moves to watch are whether the government appeals to the Ninth Circuit, and if it doesn’t, whether the plaintiffs return to seek nationwide relief. Either way, this is unlikely to be the last word.
This post is for general information and is not legal advice. H-4 holders with specific questions about their EAD status should consult an immigration attorney.
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