A lot of Indian students are duped after coming to USA for education. It does not matter which university you are in. Even if you are a student at some of the top universities in USA, this does not make any difference. So please read the following content carefully before you make that choice. If you are a student figuring out ways to come to USA for education very likely you are young, please learn from those who made the choices before you and learned the hard truths.
Some of the laws apply ONLY FOR INDIANs.
Student visa does not enable you to work in USA.
Student visa is not same as work visa. Even though US consulates and many other companies and universities might misguide you on this matter, remain absolutely clear that F1 student visa is meant for those who wish to leave the country after their education is done. If you work, try to work or make any income while being USA as a student you might get deported, get your visa cancelled, fined, put in jail etc. If you are deported from USA no other country will give you a visa.
“By working” it does not matter if you work for money or free. Working for free also is illegal. Working as a freelancer for people in other countries is illegal. Making apps and making money of them is illegal. Registering a company (even if no work is involved) is illegal.
But you see, these laws are created specifically to exploit students from India and China. Once you arrive in USA as a student you will learn about CPT and OPT. The highly restricted loopholes that the government has created to make the students work as cheap labour. CPT is like internship where you might get paid a little and comes with lot of complicated legal restrictions which I will not go into. OPT is like an extended internship that you do AFTER you degree is complete and you may use it to get a job for 2 years after you complete your education.
This OPT concept was introduced to give a false hope for students that they can work. This is what traps most students into American higher education system.
Why Indian students are treated differently.
In 1965 American Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act INA. In this law Indians and Chinese people were identified as “undesirables”. The folks who should not be allowed to come to USA and become citizens. For this they imposed a 7% limit on green cards that can be given to anyone who is born in a particular country. There are total 140K green cards for workers that are given each year. This means for a small country like sri lanka max of 9000 green cards are available and for a large country like India too 9000 green cards are available.
This law was put in the books to ensure that white people from smaller countries in Europe could immigrate in large numbers while Indians and Chinese can not.
So if an Indian and Pakistani student arrives in 2022 in USA, Pakistani student might get a job while being a student, get the employer to sponsor a green card and have it in his hand in 2 years. If you try to do the same you will get your green card in 150 years. It is not a typo. 150 years or perhaps 200 years. Which means no Indian student who enters USA today will get their green cards in their lifetime. You will see your Pakistani and Bangladeshi classmates not only get their greencards and citizenship but also bring in their parents. While you will go to Mumbai consulate every 3 years and stand in line to get your 5th visa stamp renewal and will be stopped everytime you enter USA and treated like shit.
Why H1B visa is meant to exploit Indians.
While you are on OTP and working for some employer, they may chose to file your H1B visa. The whole process takes 1 year and during which you may not be able to quit your employer. Your employer will use this fact to pay you very less compared to say someone who has greencard. If the greencard holder Pakistani immigrant gets paid $100,000 you might be making $75,000.
H1B visa is a subject to a lottery, you may or may not get selected. Once selected there will still be more paperwork involved. So while on OTP you will be underpaid and wont be able to quit.
H1B visa is valid only for that employer which means after getting the visa you can not quit the employer and work for someone else. For that to happen, the other employer needs to file H1B visa (which is not subject to lottery but still can take months to process). Which means you will still be underpaid by your employer compared to other immigrants.
Indian immigrants die while on H1B. Waiting for their green card after spending 20 years in USA while all other immigrants get their greencards.
If you are on H1B, your spouse and kids might be on various dependent visa combinations. The moment you die, they are out of status and then they become illegal immigrants in USA. They wont have time to collect your dead body and cremate it. They will have to rush to the lawyers first as your dead body stays in the morgue. People then raise money through GoFundMe to support such families.
See this: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/02/02/backloggofundme/
Narayan died in surgery in August 2020. Raj remembers that, even while intubated, he never kept working because to lose his job meant his family would lose their immigration status and have to leave the United States.
“He couldn’t speak but he was helping us with his fingers to punch in his passcodes,” Raj tells Latino Rebels.
The day after Nayaran died, his wife was fired from her job. Because he had been sponsoring her work visa, his death made her suddenly ineligible to work in the United States.
“I always advise all H1B to plan for the worst things to come,” says Raj, who helped launch a GoFundMe campaign for Narayan’s wife and son who both had to leave the country. “When they sold the house they couldn’t get the money because their bank says Lakshmi is the homeowner, not his wife,” said Raj.
Note that Narayan here is not some cheap blue collar worker. He is a well educated software engineer working for a very good salary and law abiding immigrant. That did not stop from his family being subjected this racist treatment.
Where can I read more about this racist treatment of Indian students and immigrants ?
Indian immigrants suffering this racism have been raising voice against this racism for last few decades. It is only now that our voice is reaching more people.
The best resources are comments by Indian immigrants on USCIS’s twitter handle. USCIS is immigration agency of US government and often hides their racism. But the Indian immigrants are extremely active in exposing their designs.
Last year, you reinforced the barriers to naturalization for 1 million Indian immigrants in #GCbacklog by wasting 80,000 employment greencards.
Can .@USCISDirector please follow the EO & not waste any EB greencards this year? https://t.co/lSOj3kLGgE
— ShadesOfBlueAndRed (@ShadesOfBlueAn1) February 7, 2022
USCIS, The Immigration Agency is a primary agency that ensures racial discrimination in immigration process.
USCIS is the agency that you will deal with once you are student. You will realize that this agency is worse than some of India’s most corrupt government bureaucracies.
For example:
It takes USCIS around 3-4 hours to process an H1B application. Many of these applications are renewals which means they should take less than an hour. Guess how long you will have to wait to hear from USCIS on an average ? 12 Months and more.
Say you are married that unless you get your H1B approved in 12 months your wife can not get her H4 Visa and H4EAD (permission to work). Guess how much time it takes to get it approved ? 13.5 Months. Since your wife can not work during that process she has to quit her job because USCIS can not process that EAD. For an agent it takes around 12 minutes to approve the H4 visa but they will not even touch your file for a year.
Due to COVID a lot of people did not immigrate to USA. As a result around 80K additional greencard were available which could have been given to Indians waiting in the greencard queue. What did USCIS do ? They did not issue them even though legally immigrants were entitled for it.
Is this about Republicans and Democrats ?
No. It is a myth. When it comes to brown people like you, both Democrats and Republicans will ensure you will never get off H1B visa. The biggest opponent of Indian immigration in USA is Senator Dick Durbin of Democratic Party. He is so racist that there is an actual website durbinisracist.com
Democrats have called Indians in USA “parasites” for being rich and favouring low taxes. It is well known how much the Trump loving folks hate brown people.
What are my alternatives ?
CANADA, Australia, UK and Germany are much better countries to study at the moment and have more predictable and non-racist laws. A lot of Indians in USA have moved to canada because of the racist treatment.
See other real experiences:
This should not be the norm. My grandfather passed away 5 months ago. My father couldn’t be there during his hospitalization and funeral due to lack of visa appointments and travel ban at the time. @SpeakSamuel, thank you for highlighting this important issue.(1/3) https://t.co/BzeZ38qQwZ
— Pareen Mhatre (@PareenMhatre) February 5, 2022
I am in currently in US..My dad expired 2 days back..I cannot travel to India and be with my family during this hard time..just because in Mumbai US consulate does not have any visa stamping dates..how are you guys planning to overcome this emergency situation?
— Dinesh Jambhale (@Dinesh55574622) February 5, 2022
When my father passed away i August 2019. I was in the same situation. Couldn’t be with my family when needed.
— Shivanath Medidi (@ShivanathMedidi) February 5, 2022
Last year we partnered with 3 licensed professionals to host therapy sessions for visa dreamers, this year we are able to send 50 kids to therapy for free via our partnership with @betterhelp and now after months of planning we are launching support groups for kids (and parents!) https://t.co/0meeRrI4Ax
— Sumana (@sumzzzie) February 8, 2022
It's very evident from the response that it's all empty advertisment. Why are Indian immigrants discriminated by this agency? You wasted 80k green cards last year which affected indian immigrants who are waiting in 200 year backlog. H4 EAD takes more than 12 months.
— Equality (@Rose81826903) February 8, 2022
Disclaimer: these doesn’t apply for people coming from India. Indians in America will face #GCBacklog & #H4EADdelays and life will become applications and waiting. That’s all. @USCISDirector @SaveH4EADs @USCIS @POTUS
— Victim of H4-EAD Delays (@nandini67587394) February 3, 2022
