It is one of the most-sought after identity cards in the world: a U.S. green card. Every immigrant who comes to the United States strives and dreams for it. For most, it takes years to become a permanent resident, which means holding a green card and a possibility of earning a naturalized citizenship in five years. While most wait anxiously to get the card, it makes life no different for hundreds and thousands other immigrants just because they have it.
But if legal permanent residents marry outside the United States, they have to wait for at least five years for their spouses to join them, if the spouse is not a U.S. citizen, a legal permanent resident, an H-1B, or L visa holder. The spouse cannot visit the United States even for a few days – not even on a visitor’s visa.
The simmering issue is part of the larger family reunification laws that many legal permanent residents have to contend with, when they decide to carve a permanent life in the United States. For most, the wait to be united with their family takes longer than the wait for the green card itself.
A mechanism to unite families of legal permanent residents was created by the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act of 2000 (LIFE Act) with the introduction of V visa [which allows the spouse or child of a U.S. lawful permanent resident to live and work in the United States in a nonimmigrant category until they are able to apply for lawful permanent residence status, or for an immigrant visa, instead of having to wait outside the United States] by President George W. Bush. It expired, however, in 2003, and is no longer available. Almost every year new bills addressing this issue are introduced in Congress by a few concerned lawmakers, but don’t get past the Judiciary Committee.
The U.S. Department of State provides 480,000 family visas every year, which an immigrant’s spouse and non-married children under 21 use to stay in the country while awaiting immigrant status. Over the years backlogs increased; the current wait to get the visa processed is around five years.
What is the quirky part of the immigration system? If you are on a student, H-1B [given to foreign skilled workers] or L [work] visa, or a Research J visa, or B business visa – for that matter, any other visas – you can bring your family on a dependent visa in two months. This is not the case for legal permanent residents, who seethe at this immigration policy. A legal permanent resident can get married to a H-1B visa or L holder – as only those visas declare dual intent to decide to become permanent residents – but many find that luck has to play a big part, as relocation for H-1B and L visa holders is tough, and the couple might still end up living and working in different states. A legal permanent resident, after waiting for five years, can become a citizen, and then bring his or her spouse and family in a few months. But the wait is unending for most.
Vinodev Rajasekaran, 31, a green card holder with a six-figure salary working as an electrical engineer at a networking chips company in Silicon Valley, California quit his job in July last year to spend more time with wife, Vivien, in Bangalore, India.
“The separation had become unbearable,” he said, adding that long calls, sometimes for hours everyday, was a poor substitute. He started to feel her absence more after each call ended.
Rajasekaran’s tale of emigration from India is one that many South Asian Indians in the United States can identify with. He came to the United States in 1996 to do a master’s program in electrical engineering from the University of Louisville in Kentucky, after graduating from Madras University. In 1998, he joined a start-up company in California, which sponsored him for a green card. His permanent residency was expected around June 2005.
In August 2004, he got engaged to Vivien, and the wedding was finalized for later the same year in December. The plan was to bring Vivien to stay with him on H-4 dependent spouse visa. Vivien, who grew up in Dubai and has a degree in business management, quit her job there and relocated to Bangalore to prepare for the wedding and for her eventual move to Santa Clara, California, where Rajasekaran had plans to buy a house.
“It was a shock to me when I got a call from my lawyer giving me the news that my green card had come through. That was in October of 2004,” he says. “He told me my wife could not come to the United States for several years.”
The two discussed the new scenario, which meant they would have to live separately for years, unless new legislation was passed. Their families were appalled at the news.
“I told my fiancé that she could say ‘no’ to the wedding. We decided to go ahead with the wedding and face the consequences later,” he said. “Her parents were very disappointed but finally it was our decision that mattered.”
Rajasekaran and Vivien spent a month together after the wedding, and decided that Rajasekaran would visit India for a couple of months every year. He returned to Santa Clara and went about with his regular routine. However, when his company refused to grant him extended leave without pay to visit his wife, he quit his job, vacated his apartment, put his furniture into storage, and flew to India to be with Vivien.
“I have no regrets. We are happy together, finally living life like a couple,” he said. For five months, the two stayed in their parents’ houses in Chennai and Bangalore, visited relatives and had long, lazy vacations in Goa and Kerala. He fears there is simmering discontent as some members of Vivien’s and his own family feel he should not be without a job for a long stretch of time.
The couple said that they have discussed Rajasekaran’s relocation to India and to look for a new job. But, for now, they are still waiting for legislation to come through.
Legally, Rajasekaran will forfeit his permanent residency if he were to take up a job in India during his visits there. Living in California with his wife is a top priority. Once he returns, he plans to look for some short-term contract work in the United States.
“My job prospects are going to be hurt in the long-term,” he acknowledges of the lay-offs from work. “But if I try to look for a permanent position, the company would be very skeptical of my requests for long leaves.”
Rajasekaran narrates one of the quirks of the immigration system with which he is now disillusioned: “Despite my wife being in India last year when I filed taxes, I did a joint filing. My wife worked in Dubai for the last tax year, so I had to dole out taxes on the income earned by my wife.”
There are thousands like Rajasekaran who try to work around the U.S. immigration system, but chuck their jobs and spend more time in India with their partner, yet maintain their permanent residency.
Couples are not the only ones affected by the immigration rules for legal permanent residents who marry. Even single professionals who wait for the security of a green card find themselves in a quandary when it comes to getting married to a partner chosen by family in India, or to somebody in the United States whose visa status proves to be a hurdle.
Ajit Natarajan, 33, is an example. A software architect who earns a six-figure salary, Ajit started a group called unitefamilies.org in 2002, which now boasts more than 700 members, all permanent residents mired in the same predicament of being separated from their spouses or not finding a partner to marry. It also has a number of European members who are separated from their spouses. Natarajan says more than 100 members in the unitefamilies.org group are single professionals who are finding it difficult to marry and have turned in frustration to the group to push for legislation.
“It is unbelievable but true that a future citizen is treated so low in the food chain (of immigration),” says Natarajan.
He started the support group when on a H-1B visa, after he noticed the predicament of some of his friends who were permanent residents but separated from their spouses. He got his green card in October of 2004. “My parents have been trying to find somebody for me [to marry] in the United States. [My mother’s] search continues because parents of the girls shy away once they come to know that I have a green card. They just stop talking to my parents.”
He explained further: “It is frustrating situation to get a partner in the United States. I cannot get married to somebody on a student visa as she would be automatically disqualified for the I-130 petition as she has declared her intention to go back when she was given her F1 Student visa; and if somebody is on a H-1B, she has to be in the same place as I, as it is difficult to relocate.”
He has enrolled himself in several marriage portals, but as he says it is also a “demand supply ratio” that matters in arranged marriages. “There are more prospective spouses in India than here in the United States, and they don’t want to get married to a Green Card holder,” he says.
According to Natarajan, 400,000 to 500,000 people are waiting for their I-130 petitions [filed for alien relatives] to be cleared for their spouse in the United States. He quotes figures from the State Department to prove the numbers. Natarajan is hopeful that the immigration reform proposals would either reinstate the V visa or allow spouse and children of legal permanent residents to travel to the United States on visitor or temporary visas until their petitions are cleared.
