Many Indian women in limbo

LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA: For seven years, Deepika Jalakam sat at home. Bored, unfulfilled and dependent on her husband for every dime, she struggled with the notion that her professional life was doomed in the land of opportunity.

So when the employment card arrived in the mail in 2015, Jalakam did what she often does when good fortune comes her way: She placed it before the gods in the Hindu shrine mounted in her kitchen cabinet, blessed it with a dab of red “kum kum” powder and recited a prayer.

Within weeks, Jalakam, who has a degree in biotechnology, landed a job as an analyst at an insurance company. The next year, she and her husband, Vinay Kumar, a software engineer, bought a house. In 2017, the finances of the Indian immigrant couple were secure enough that they decided to have a second child.

All that planning, though, is in jeopardy. Jalakam and thousands of other spouses of skilled workers have been told that their special work permits — authorisation that can mean the difference between struggling and thriving in their adopted homeland—are likely to be revoked.

The Trump administration announced last fall that, as part of a crackdown on H-1B visas issued for skilled workers to enter the US, it plans to rescind an Obamaera programme that allowed spouses to work. The change, expected in June, would mean that thousands of mainly Indian women who followed their husbands to the US will have to give up their jobs, even though many are highly educated workers with sought-after skills.

“We were happily working and feeling settled down with the life we wanted. Suddenly, this announcement came and there is instability,” said Jalakam, 32, who now finds herself worrying about everything from day-today spending to vacation plans.

Across the country, thousands of Indian families are caught in a similar dilemma because of the outsized role that they play in the H-1B visa programme.

The annual visa scramble began this week, with applications delivered by the truckload to government processing centers. The petitions represent tens of thousands of foreigners vying for the opportunity to work in the US for three years or longer.

Many are Indian software engineers and computer programmers recruited by US technology companies that say they cannot find enough talent in this country. Among the applicants are Indian math and science teachers headed for rural schools, as well as physicians and other professionals.