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NEW DELHI: When President Donald Trump announced in a nightly tweet that he would “suspend immigration” to protect America’s jobs from an economic crisis caused by the coronavirus, Priyanka Nagar prepared for the worst.
For more than a decade, Nagar, an Indian citizen, had built a steady life in the United States, but was now back in India, waiting for a visa extension. She and her husband, who works for Microsoft, have applied for green cards. They hung an American flag from their balcony at their home in Washington state, where Nagar had given birth to the couple’s 5-year-old daughter.
But when Nagar read Trump’s tweet released Monday night, while separated from his family in the United States, the idea of leaving his forged life behind without even a goodbye was devastating, he said.
“I beg the government not to consider us enemies,” said Nagar, 39, a software developer. “I want the United States to prosper. It has given us a lot. ”
By Tuesday, Trump had ordered a 60-day stop on the issuance of green cards to prevent people from immigrating to the United States, pulling away from his tougher plans to suspend guest worker programs after business groups erupted in anger faced with the prospect of losing labor from countries like India.
But as millions of Americans apply for unemployment, flooding food banks and hospitals, foreign workers fear the pandemic will uproot them sooner rather than later.
Immigrant groups warn that, fueled by what they call the Trump administration’s protectionist impulses, the United States could purge some of its most talented workers, cutting off the vibrant multiculturalism that has made the United States such an attractive destination for decades. .
“I can’t say what panic this has caused in the immigration legal community,” Nandini Nair, a New Jersey-based immigration attorney, said of Trump’s “life change for a tweet.”
More immigration restrictions could have particularly serious consequences for India, which sends thousands of highly skilled workers to the United States each year and has a strong diaspora of 4 million in the country, representing one of the largest immigrant contingents to the United States.
Visa programs like H-1B help fill specialty positions at companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook. American Indians are some of the richest and most successful immigrants in the country, with a particular stronghold in the Silicon Valley opening scene.
These days, Harkamal Singh Khural, 34, a software developer living in an Atlanta suburb, said he hardly slept. Even if the government didn’t kick him out, he said a volatile job market meant his immigration status was already weak.
The company that sponsors your H-1B visa has already released half of its team. Her two daughters are naturalized US citizens, which means that it was possible that her family could separate.
“I am afraid of losing everything,” said Khural. “This is not really a job. It’s about dreams. ”
For now, programs like H-1B are unlikely to be immediately affected by the new restrictions. But on Tuesday, Trump left open the possibility of extending the ban on new green cards “depending on the economic conditions of the time.”
He suggested that it could also introduce a second executive order that could further restrict immigration, leaving aside studies showing that a flow of foreign labor into the country has an overall positive effect on the US workforce and wages. . USA
“We must take care of the American worker first,” Trump said, insisting that newly unemployed citizens should not have to compete with foreigners when the economy reopens.
Human rights groups say the immigration process has become increasingly complex and frustrating in recent years, with Trump fanning the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment by pressing for a sprawling wall along the Mexican border and labeling a group of African nations as “shit countries”.
For Indian citizens, building a more permanent base in the country has never been easy.
Most of the 800,000 immigrants currently waiting for a green card are Indian citizens. Due to quotas that limit the number of workers in each country, Indians can wait up to 50 years to obtain a green card, since their representation among immigrants is very high in the United States.
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Last summer, the Equity Law for Highly Qualified Immigrants, which sought to address the backlog by eliminating countries’ quotas, navigated the Chamber. But it stalled in the Senate, where critics like Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Argued that the bill would not solve the problem because it does not increase the total number of green cards.
Many Indian citizens said the exchange was exhausting.
“You probably won’t get a green card in this lifetime unless the laws change,” said Somak Goswami, an electrical engineer who applied for a green card in 2011. “I have colleagues who came to the US in 2017 and have a green card card already. My only fault was that I was born in India. ”
(END OF OPTIONAL CUT OUT)
Analysts said immigration restrictions could strain the delicate but increasingly friendly relationship between India and the United States, the world’s most populous democracies.
In recent months, Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi have tried to build an even stronger alliance, exchanging praise with each other on stage at brilliant events in Houston and Ahmadabad, India.
Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said: “Any action that appears to infringe on the mobility of American Indians or Indians will be strongly resisted.”
“Suffice it to say that this will not go well in India,” he said of the stricter immigration controls. “Prime Minister Modi has made outreach to the diaspora community in the United States and elsewhere a cornerstone of his foreign policy.”
In India, Nagar, who stays with her parents in the state of Uttar Pradesh, said she was trying to maintain hope and told herself that “she lives today and she hopes tomorrow.”
But with international airspace largely closed, embassies closed for visa processing, and the added stress of immigration restrictions, Nagar feared that the extension of his H-1B visa could be delayed for many more months, prolonging the separation. from your family and increasing the chance that they may have to leave the United States entirely.
During a video call, Nagar’s daughter, a kindergarten student, said to her, “Mommy, when the virus dies, you will come. I will wait for the virus to die.” When the video conversations with her daughter end, Nagar says that she sometimes lies in bed and cries.
“In the US, you have the whole world working together toward a common goal,” he said. “You can’t find that diversity anywhere else. I love this country. ”
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For more than a decade, Nagar, an Indian citizen, had built a steady life in the United States, but was now back in India, waiting for a visa extension. She and her husband, who works for Microsoft, have applied for green cards. They hung an American flag from their balcony at their home in Washington state, where Nagar had given birth to the couple’s 5-year-old daughter.
But when Nagar read Trump’s tweet released Monday night, while separated from his family in the United States, the idea of leaving his forged life behind without even a goodbye was devastating, he said.
“I beg the government not to consider us enemies,” said Nagar, 39, a software developer. “I want the United States to prosper. It has given us a lot. ”
By Tuesday, Trump had ordered a 60-day stop on the issuance of green cards to prevent people from immigrating to the United States, pulling away from his tougher plans to suspend guest worker programs after business groups erupted in anger faced with the prospect of losing labor from countries like India.
But as millions of Americans apply for unemployment, flooding food banks and hospitals, foreign workers fear the pandemic will uproot them sooner rather than later.
Immigrant groups warn that, fueled by what they call the Trump administration’s protectionist impulses, the United States could purge some of its most talented workers, cutting off the vibrant multiculturalism that has made the United States such an attractive destination for decades. .
“I can’t say what panic this has caused in the immigration legal community,” Nandini Nair, a New Jersey-based immigration attorney, said of Trump’s “life change for a tweet.”
More immigration restrictions could have particularly serious consequences for India, which sends thousands of highly skilled workers to the United States each year and has a strong diaspora of 4 million in the country, representing one of the largest immigrant contingents to the United States.
Visa programs like H-1B help fill specialty positions at companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook. American Indians are some of the richest and most successful immigrants in the country, with a particular stronghold in the Silicon Valley opening scene.
These days, Harkamal Singh Khural, 34, a software developer living in an Atlanta suburb, said he hardly slept. Even if the government didn’t kick him out, he said a volatile job market meant his immigration status was already weak.
The company that sponsors your H-1B visa has already released half of its team. Her two daughters are naturalized US citizens, which means that it was possible that her family could separate.
“I am afraid of losing everything,” said Khural. “This is not really a job. It’s about dreams. ”
For now, programs like H-1B are unlikely to be immediately affected by the new restrictions. But on Tuesday, Trump left open the possibility of extending the ban on new green cards “depending on the economic conditions of the time.”
He suggested that it could also introduce a second executive order that could further restrict immigration, leaving aside studies showing that a flow of foreign labor into the country has an overall positive effect on the US workforce and wages. . USA
“We must take care of the American worker first,” Trump said, insisting that newly unemployed citizens should not have to compete with foreigners when the economy reopens.
Human rights groups say the immigration process has become increasingly complex and frustrating in recent years, with Trump fanning the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment by pressing for a sprawling wall along the Mexican border and labeling a group of African nations as “shit countries”.
For Indian citizens, building a more permanent base in the country has never been easy.
Most of the 800,000 immigrants currently waiting for a green card are Indian citizens. Due to quotas that limit the number of workers in each country, Indians can wait up to 50 years to obtain a green card, since their representation among immigrants is very high in the United States.
(START OPTIONAL TRIM)
Last summer, the Equity Law for Highly Qualified Immigrants, which sought to address the backlog by eliminating countries’ quotas, navigated the Chamber. But it stalled in the Senate, where critics like Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Argued that the bill would not solve the problem because it does not increase the total number of green cards.
Many Indian citizens said the exchange was exhausting.
“You probably won’t get a green card in this lifetime unless the laws change,” said Somak Goswami, an electrical engineer who applied for a green card in 2011. “I have colleagues who came to the US in 2017 and have a green card card already. My only fault was that I was born in India. ”
(END OF OPTIONAL CUT OUT)
Analysts said immigration restrictions could strain the delicate but increasingly friendly relationship between India and the United States, the world’s most populous democracies.
In recent months, Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi have tried to build an even stronger alliance, exchanging praise with each other on stage at brilliant events in Houston and Ahmadabad, India.
Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said: “Any action that appears to infringe on the mobility of American Indians or Indians will be strongly resisted.”
“Suffice it to say that this will not go well in India,” he said of the stricter immigration controls. “Prime Minister Modi has made outreach to the diaspora community in the United States and elsewhere a cornerstone of his foreign policy.”
In India, Nagar, who stays with her parents in the state of Uttar Pradesh, said she was trying to maintain hope and told herself that “she lives today and she hopes tomorrow.”
But with international airspace largely closed, embassies closed for visa processing, and the added stress of immigration restrictions, Nagar feared that the extension of his H-1B visa could be delayed for many more months, prolonging the separation. from your family and increasing the chance that they may have to leave the United States entirely.
During a video call, Nagar’s daughter, a kindergarten student, said to her, “Mommy, when the virus dies, you will come. I will wait for the virus to die.” When the video conversations with her daughter end, Nagar says that she sometimes lies in bed and cries.
“In the US, you have the whole world working together toward a common goal,” he said. “You can’t find that diversity anywhere else. I love this country. ”
