Waiting a Decade for a Green Card

Growing up in India, the U.S. was always a source of fascination for us. In the ’80s, India and Russia had a very close relationship while the U.S. considered India’s archrival, Pakistan, as one of its closest allies. As teenagers, we heard about U.S. oppression and how the CIA was fueling terrorist activities to destabilize India through Pakistan.

Then came the ’90s and the first Gulf War, which brought American news into Indian households through CNN. And then under a new leadership, India finally opened itself to Western influences. The perception of the U.S. as the “evil empire” out to ruin India was replaced by the land of Baywatch, LA Law, and MTV. It was intriguing, to say the least.

I always wanted to study at an American university. First, I got a job in the UK as an IT consultant and finally came to U.S. from Canada after getting my Canadian citizenship in 2005. My dream finally came to fruition when I enrolled at the Wharton School to get my MBA in finance.

I came to the U.S. in 2005, originally on a TN visa since I am a Canadian citizen. (This visa is available to professionals from Canada and Mexico.) My first employer in the U.S. was a boutique consulting firm called Protégé Software Services based in Massachusetts. They transferred me to an H1-B visa after a year, because the TN visa is supposed to be temporary and has to be renewed every year. Now, I work at Hewlett Packard Enterprises on a H1-B.

The biggest challenge and frustration has been the never-ending wait for the Immigrant Worker Petition (I-140) to become current for the EB-2 category for India. Given to professionals, the EB-2 would give me permanent status. The wait for a green card is especially frustrating because I am a Canadian citizen, but the U.S. has categorized me in the EB-2 India category since I was born in India.

I have been in this country for nearly a decade now and I still don’t have a green card. The direct impact has been on my career: despite having an MBA from Wharton, I lost out and routinely lose out on job offers because employers do not want to go through the hassle of recruiting someone who will need a visa sponsorship.

I left my homeland more than 15 years ago in search of a better future. Like many immigrants, I came to the U.S. believing in the American dream that if you work hard, you will succeed and make your mark because the U.S. is a meritocracy. However, the reality is very different.

The inscription at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty reads:

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

But this is not exactly true. The U.S. government has an institutionalized bias against skilled immigrants from India and China by creating this artificial quota in employment-based visa categories. We pay the same taxes as U.S. citizens because the IRS does not discriminate. The question is: why does the rest of the federal government discriminate against us?

This country has been my home for the last decade, and this is where I want to belong. But it seems the government’s flawed policies are designed to keep immigrants like me from achieving our full potential. One has to wonder: is this what the Founding Fathers intended for the nation that was built by immigrants?