The Biden Administration has already started softening its stand on legal immigrants to the US

The H1-B visa has become a status symbol of sorts for many Indians as it facilitated the immigration of tens of thousands of engineers, particularly software engineers, from India to the United States (US). A huge majority of these vast numbers of engineers, doctors and other professionals was accompanied by their spouses on what was known as an H4 visa. A majority of H1-B visa holders and their spouses are of Indian origin, followed by Chinese nationals. The H4 visa ensured that for several women, many of them educated as much as if not better than their spouses, the US became a country of servitude as, for many years, the conditions of an H4 visa did not allow them to work. The changes brought in by the Obama Administration in those conditions were widely celebrated as it opened the doors of opportunity to thousands of women. These changes in the H4 visa conditions allowed some to not only escape the bounds of their homes, giving them an independent income, but also allowed many to escape from domestic violence. One of the dirty and darkest secrets of the immigrant community from India who live and work in the US is the high levels of domestic violence. Female partners who have been brought up in a culture of domestic abuse in India not only find it culturally difficult to report domestic violence to the authorities but also consider it impossible to report abusive partners for the fear that the partners would be arrested and possibly deported, thus losing their only source of income.

While some horrible cases are occasionally reported, the fear of losing everything and the social ostracism that would inevitably follow, not just for them but for their extended families in India as well, keeps many more cases under wraps, although that is apparently changing, which is a good thing. The previous Trump Administration, by curtailing the ability of H4 visa holders to work, had unfortunately helped promote domestic abuse among immigrants in the US and this decision, while pandering to Trump’s White nationalist and anti-immigrant vote bank, was met with howls of anger and protest by various groups campaigning for violence against women. Now, while every country has its own prerogatives in establishing immigration rules, stopping the H4 visa holders from work was a retrograde step. While the US authorities should allow H4 visa holders to work and the Biden Administration’s decision to allow this is welcome, given the immense division in the US, some restrictions on the types of employment for such visa holders must apply. That said, the Biden Administration’s move is expected to save the jobs of tens of thousands of H4 visa holders who are currently working in the US after being given employment authorisation. If such talented people are not allowed to join the workforce, only the US will be the loser. It is bad enough that India has lost this human capital, but to waste it completely would be a travesty.