It's an uncharted area.

This happens all the time. We won't know until someone tries to push the limit.

Some more similar examples:

- Green card holders can't leave the country more than 6 months. Many have stayed outside of US for 6 months with no issue. One of green cards' goal is for you to settle in US as home country. So, the general consensus is that, in a year, if you stay outside of US more than 6 months, then US is not really a home.

- RSU expiring in 7 years in order to avoid upfront tax. No one know why it is 7 years. Can it be 8 years?

- This layoff thing as well. H1B workers are on the payroll until 31 of March. Well, can it be 31 Dec 2023? Nobody knows. If you went to court, can you claim that this H1B worker respect the intention of the law? probably not.

sorry that's very lousy and irrelevant, nothing uncharted about what defines employment in immigration laws. Or that immigration cannot dictate how private companies hire people (can't have people on the payroll while doing nothing? Who tf are you to tell them?)

USCIS literally dictates how company uses H1B. OPT and H1B have to submit a document, signed by manager, explain their responsibility.

I'm pretty sure if that says "im doing nothing. I just get paid". They will be in trouble.

This case is uncharted because nobody knows how long on the payroll is wrong. We can all agree 2y is wrong. But 3 months, 4 months, 3 months 2 days? Nobody knows.

I gave you a few other examples where the lengths of periods are also arbitrary. One of them is even around immigration.