Nadella surrendered green card for love

Orlando (Florida): With his permanent residency coming in the way of his newly wed wife joining him in the US, Satya Nadella had surrendered his Green Card and applied for an H1-B visa, a move which gave him instant notoriety around the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, the India-born CEO has revealed.

In fact, at one point of time, early in his career, even with a Green Card in his hand, Mr Nadella seriously contemplated leaving his job at the Microsoft and returning to India.

This was because his wife Anu was not able to join him in Seattle, due to the existing US law that if a Green Card holder marries, his/her spouse visa is rejected. That law continues even today.

“So why would I give up the coveted green card for temporary status?” Mr Nadella writes in his book Hit Refresh, which officially releases in the US today. He married Anu in 1993. Following the wedding, he intended to bring his wife over to US.

“Well, the H1-B enables spouses to come to the US while their husbands and wives are working here. Such is the perverse logic of this immigration law. There was nothing I could do about it. Anu was my priority. And that made my decision a simple one,” Mr Nadella explains in his book.

Mr Nadella says he went back to the US embassy in Delhi in June of 1994 and told a clerk that he wanted to give back his green card and apply for an H-1B visa.

“‘Why?’ the dumbfounded clerk asked. I said something about the crazy immigration policy and he shook his head and pushed a new form to me,” Mr Nadella writes.

“The next morning, I returned to apply for an H1-B application. Miraculously, it all worked. Anu joined me.”