Expatriates Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people living abroad on a long-term basis. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I read on https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/h-1b-tech-workers-in-jeopardy-5128833/
H-1B workers who are laid off while outside the U.S. may not re-enter the country — unless they’ve found new employment in the U.S.
If an H-1B worker is laid off while outside the U.S., how quickly are they barred from entering the US? Is the visa cancelled immediately? If so, how?
Is the visa cancelled immediately? If so, how?
It doesn't matter whether the visa is cancelled at all. It can't be used because the former employee no longer meets the conditions for admission in H-1B status. This applies to any nonimmigrant status: you need a visa of the correct type (with some exceptions) and you need to meet certain criteria.
The question seems to assume that the former employee could legally return to the US if only it were possible to reach the border before the government manages to cancel the visa, but that is simply not how US immigration law works. A visa is not a license to enter the US. It is permission to travel to a US port of entry and apply to an immigration officer for admission. For the application to succeed, you need to meet the criteria for the status you seek, and with an H-1B visa one of those criteria is to be employed.
Look at any other criterion for admission. Suppose for example that you have a valid visa, perhaps B-2, but your passport has expired, and you haven't yet received a new passport. Your visa has not been cancelled; it is perfectly valid, yet you cannot enter the US. Furthermore, your visa won't be cancelled, and you will be able to use it as soon as you get a new passport.
In fact, the Foreign Affairs Manual says:
Visa Remains Valid: A change in employment does not have an effect on an H-1B employee's currently valid visa. For information on the effect of the new petition on the applicant's unexpired visa, see 9 FAM 402.10-11(A) below.
That section begins
After changing H-1B employers in accordance with USCIS procedures for making such a change, an H-1B visa holder may continue to use their original H-1B visa for entry into the United States.
So, to answer your questions:
how quickly are they barred from entering the US?
They aren't barred from entering the US. They only become ineligible to enter in H-1B status. They can enter in some other status, and they can also restore their eligibility to enter in H-1B status by finding another appropriate job.
Is the visa cancelled immediately?
No.
H1b visa depends on employment. You cannot enter more than 15 days before the employment starts or after the employment ends. If you're laid off while outside the US and your employment ends - the visa becomes invalid automatically. Whether the employer notifies the USCIS (which then notifies the CBP) or not is a different question, but when you enter with such a visa and claim that you're working for an employer you're no longer working for - you're committing immigration fraud and are risking deportation, bans, and problems with future AOS or naturalization applications.
That said, workers who are laid off are not necessarily terminated on the same day. Many times a notice requirement is statutory (e.g.: for layoffs in California, Washington, New York, and some other States), and many times employers will keep laid off employees technically employed for a while longer while the details of severance and such are sorted out even if they're no longer actively working or allowed on premises or into the corporate networks.
To complement littleadv's answer, olender.pro mentions:
The employer bears a duty to notify USCIS immediately upon the termination of an H-1B worker's employment. 8 CFR 214.2(h)(11).
However, I don't know whether the employer may use snail mails to notify USCIS.
