During the early years of my stint as The Hindu ’s U.S. correspondent, I once received an email from a young woman of Indian origin who poignantly outlined the devastating consequences of the stringent restrictions of the H-4 visa, given to the spouse of the much-discussed H-1B.
She explained that the ban on work authorisation for the H-4 visa meant that highly trained professionals, often with advanced degrees in technical subjects and many years in a rewarding career track back home, were suddenly facing the prospect of being abruptly jobless as well as experiencing numerous other ills that came with social isolation in an alien setting.
Would I be interested, she asked, in doing a story on their plight, which could bring more attention to a neglected area of U.S. visa policy?
I knew from the first-hand experience of family members that work restrictions associated with certain U.S. visa categories could have a severe impact on otherwise highly productive, career-minded individuals.
What was news to me was how often, in such a situation, there is not only familial breakdown owing to the traumatic pressure of job loss but also spousal abuse, deepening mental health problems and wider social fallout.
I was hooked. I could sense the potential for a hard-hitting story focussing on the human cost of a bureaucratic approach to policy, which also raised questions about American values on immigration. I couldn’t believe that there was such a dearth of reporting on a subject that might affect many hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens in the U.S.
We quickly got to work, that young woman and I, on conducting a survey in a Facebook group of H-4 visa holders that she administered. The responses we got were stunning. Many individuals, mostly women, were willing to speak openly about intimate mental health issues, cases of spousal abuse.
Blending these powerful narratives with a more technical discussion of the legal aspects of visa policy in this area, I filed a double-part story ( https://goo.gl/vDhmWR and https://goo.gl/zCzi64 ). The reader feedback was overwhelming.
To this day I would like to think that the spotlight that they shone upon this neglected human dimension played a role in the subsequent change of policy announced less than six months after the stories ran: the U.S. government began, at long last, to grant conditional work authorisations to H-4 visa holders .
