Under Trump, more foreign spouses could lose their jobs
SUDARSHANA Sengupta used to consider herself an immigrant success story. A scientist on the verge of launching a start-up, she thought she had checked all the right boxes on her way to achieving the American Dream. She works at a university lab, pays taxes and has begun the lengthy process of becoming a permanent resident.
But what once looked like a glittering future is now in jeopardy.
The Trump administration said last week that it was considering whether to revoke an Obama- era rule that allows some spouses of “high- skilled” foreign workers to also hold jobs in the United States.
The move - stripping away privileges granted by Obama in 2015 - would make it impossible for Sengupta and an estimated 200,000 others with similar immigration status to stay in their jobs.
It comes as the Trump administration weighs its response to a lawsuit brought against the federal government by a group of IT workers in California, who argue that the spousal visas hurt American workers.
Most of those faced with losing their right to work - if the Trump administration revokes the authorisations - would be women like Sengupta, highly educated wives who in many cases gave up their own “high- skilled” H1B visas for the spousal work permits.
“I followed all the rules, jumped through all the hoops,” said Sengupta, a 43-year- old biomedical researcher. “I do not want to move back to India just so I can work. I cannot abandon my son and my husband.”
The work authorisations for spouses on H- 4 dependent visas are more flexible than the H1B visas because they are not bound to a single employer. The unrestricted work permits are similar to those granted to other visa-holder spouses - such as those married to foreign workers employed by multi-national companies. But in those cases, the employment rights were authorised by Congress, not the president.
The Obama administration had extended work privileges to spouses of one of the most soughtafter classes of foreign workers - the “high- skilled” workers who staff the tech and science industries - as an incentive for these workers to complete the green card process and stay in the United States.
While there may be humanitarian reasons to allow these spouses to contribute financially to their households, some economists say the policy is unfair.
“It’s difficult for modern couples to not have spouses
I followed all the rules, jumped through all the hoops. I do not want to move back to India just so I can work. I cannot abandon my son and my husband.
who want to work, but it’s not in the interest of the American workforce to bring in more workers,” said Peter Cappelli, an economist and management professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. “Nobody would make the argument that just because you can work, you can come to the United States. That’s the situation here - somebody coming in who may not be able to pass the usual hurdle.”
Sengupta never envisioned putting her career at risk when, at age 28, she moved from Kolkata, India, to Louisville, Kentucky, in 2002 so her husband, Sadhak, could start a postdoctoral fellowship. “We decided that the United States had better opportunities for scientists than India,” Sengupta said. “There’s an environment of innovation here that does not exist anywhere else.”
Once she secured a work permit as the spouse of a visiting scholar, she volunteered at a university lab until she landed a paid position. She and her husband applied for H-1B visas in 2005 - the first step in the arduous green card process - when they decided to try to settle permanently in the United States. Her husband filed an immigrant visa petition, which was approved in 2010 - putting the family in the pipeline for their green cards.
Indian H-1B holders face waits
Sudarshana Sengupta, a scientist
of more than a decade for their green cards because of a percountry cap and high demand. Indians account for more than 70 per cent of H-1B visa recipients.
After short stints in Chicago and Indianapolis, where Sengupta worked at various universities, the couple moved to the Boston area in 2011. Her husband is the director of the brain tumor immunotherapy research programme at Rhode Island Hospital, affiliated with Brown University. She had a job at a Harvard- affiliated teaching hospital.
Workers on H-1B visas who have begun the green card process can renew their work visas indefinitely - but not their spouses.
Sengupta did not start her own process to obtain a green card because she knew she would eventually get one through her husband. But her H-1B visa expired in 2013, making her ineligible to work.
“It was devastating. I had never not worked in my life,” she said. “Financially, it was draining, but it took an even bigger toll emotionally.” —WPBloomberg