V
V.Balasubramani
Guest
[h=1]During first week of January this year medias have reported that U.S. is not considering any change in H1B visa rules that would force half the India work force in the country to leave.[/h][h=1]But it seems there is still some uncertainty….[/h]This article throws some light on the legal reforms proposed..
[h=1]For here or to go?[/h]
[h=2]Caught between an administration hostile to immigrants and a progressively tougher visa regime, the fate of more than 1.5 million Indian green card applicants hangs in the balance. Varghese K. George reports on how Indian Americans are now mobilising for legal reforms that would allow them to pursue their American dream[/h]“For here or to go?” is what a customer is asked every time a meal is ordered at an American fast-food restaurant. For the estimated 1.5 million Indian Americans waiting for a green card, or permanent residency, in America, this is more than a question about a meal. “It is an existential question for us,” says Rishi B.S., an Indian American technology professional in Silicon Valley who wrote and produced a film, that released last year to critical acclaim — For Here or to Go?
The film, on the dilemma of H-1B visas faced by people living in the U.S., is a slice of his own life. “We have a permanent temporary status,” he says. After obtaining a master’s degree in the U.S, he got an H-1B visa in 2007, and is now in the queue for a green card.
Until two decades ago, for here or to go (back to India) was a question that most Indians who came to America could resolve by themselves. Karthik (who wants to go only by his first name because the Indian company that employs him in America on an H-1B visa has a gag order on employees) recalls that his aunt Sandhya, who came to the U.S. in the early 1990s, was offered a green card almost immediately. But she wasn’t sure where she wanted to stay. Finally, in 1999, she took a permanent residency and became a U.S. citizen in 2004.
Read more at: http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/for-here-or-to-go/article22708434.ece?homepage=true
[h=1]For here or to go?[/h]
[h=2]Caught between an administration hostile to immigrants and a progressively tougher visa regime, the fate of more than 1.5 million Indian green card applicants hangs in the balance. Varghese K. George reports on how Indian Americans are now mobilising for legal reforms that would allow them to pursue their American dream[/h]“For here or to go?” is what a customer is asked every time a meal is ordered at an American fast-food restaurant. For the estimated 1.5 million Indian Americans waiting for a green card, or permanent residency, in America, this is more than a question about a meal. “It is an existential question for us,” says Rishi B.S., an Indian American technology professional in Silicon Valley who wrote and produced a film, that released last year to critical acclaim — For Here or to Go?
The film, on the dilemma of H-1B visas faced by people living in the U.S., is a slice of his own life. “We have a permanent temporary status,” he says. After obtaining a master’s degree in the U.S, he got an H-1B visa in 2007, and is now in the queue for a green card.
Until two decades ago, for here or to go (back to India) was a question that most Indians who came to America could resolve by themselves. Karthik (who wants to go only by his first name because the Indian company that employs him in America on an H-1B visa has a gag order on employees) recalls that his aunt Sandhya, who came to the U.S. in the early 1990s, was offered a green card almost immediately. But she wasn’t sure where she wanted to stay. Finally, in 1999, she took a permanent residency and became a U.S. citizen in 2004.
Read more at: http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/for-here-or-to-go/article22708434.ece?homepage=true