Indian teen fled US home fearing father’s deportation
A 14-YEAR-old Indian-American school girl has been missing for more than three weeks in Arkansas, with the police indicating that she might have run away due to the fear of leaving the US as her father faced the possibility of retrenchment amidst layoffs in the tech industry.
Tanvi Marupally from Conway, Arkansas was last seen in her neighborhood on January 17 when she left for school on the bus, the Conway Police Department (CPD) said.
Police said they believe one of the possible reasons why she ran away was a fear of her family being deported, kark.com reported.
Tanvi’s parents believe that their daughter ran away because of the family’s tenuous immigration status. They say even though they’ve legally lived and worked in the US for many years, hoping and trying to acquire citizenship, the country’s immigration system has left them out in the cold, they told KATV.
Her father, Pavan Roy Marupally, who works in a tech company faced the possibility of losing his job due to ongoing layoffs in the technology sector.
However, he has informed the CPD that he is no longer at risk of losing his job and that leaving the country is not a concern at this time, kark.com reported.
According to The Washington Post, nearly 200,000 IT workers have been laid off since
November last year, including some record numbers in companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon.
As per some industry insiders, between 30 to 40 per cent of them are Indian IT professionals, a significant number of whom are on H-1B and L1 visas.
According to LayoffTracker.com, 91,000 were laid off just in January 2023 and this number may grow in the coming months. This has a huge impact on them, and their families, especially on the H-1B holders who would need to leave the US immediately within 10 days beyond the H-1B grace period.
Her mother, Sridevi Eadara, also lost her job, the report added. Sridevi had to return to India alone and reapply for a visa as a dependent of Pavan. It took a year before she could return to be with her family, KATV reported.