Challenges faced by a H1B visa holder in US

Dear Reader,

I wanted to write this piece so that the youngsters in India dreaming of a H1B visa and having a great career and life are made aware of the reality.It is a shame that lot of IT guys have been facing similar or even tougher experience but when you search the web ,you don't find their experiences so that it benefits others.


I am an IT professional working in US for past 5 years on H1B.I came here because from college mates and from media,I had heard great things about USA .I read book/articles etc talking about how much this country offers to immigrants and imagined as that it was a land of opportunities and a hard working and educated immigrant will get enough opportunity to excel in his field and do well for himself and his family.I imagined that it may be possible to do cutting edge work which may not be available in India and at the समे time get paid well for the same.I imagined that in USA,most of the companies would be run under good management and would have a good working culture which will nurture employees.To come and work here ,I left management career opportunities with Indian companies .

However,after coming here,I started realizing the limitations of what you can achieve while being a H1B employee and coming from India(currently INS is processing employment based green card for Indians whose labour was approved in 2001 due to large number of Indians applying for green card and US wants only a fixed number of Indians to immigrate)।First of all not every company would like to employ H1B guys as it means they will have to take the pain of working with INS and spend money on lawyers for Green card।Then among the companies who are willing to sponsor H1B candidates,they differ in terms of how fast they will start the green card processing.A good company would take 1 year before they start the green card process.Hence I joined a mediocre company which was well known for fast green card process.However,the company was working like a body shopper and management was horrible. This is also a typical situation in US where highly qualified and experienced IT guys working on H1B visa are treated by these body shopper as daily wage earner.I left them and joined a respected US based global player in IT consulting .The company had a very good work culture .The company sponsored my Green card after waiting for 1 year .Although I had to travel every week to client site and I was missing my family time,still the pay and work was good.However the company was making losses before I joined them and they continued to make losses afterwards.This is a peculiar US malaise where most of the companies are owned by private equity firms which don't have any long term interest in the company and the top management mainly work for their hefty bonuses.So the top management in my company kept taking good pay and bonuses while the company was bleeding and share prices was tanking.Top management would from time to time would give pep communication to rank and file that every thing was under control and we will get over this( Satyam employees may find it familiar).However,clients started moving away from them and we did not bag any new project in 2008 barring a two to three small gig in my area of work.As a result,I had to spend a lot of time on bench in 2008 but I was sticking with them because of my green card process.If I were to leave them then the new company would have to start the green card process from scratch .Also I had just 2 years of H1B left and many of the good companies were not interested to hire because of less years left in my H1B.And then the share market tanked in September 2008 and many consulting company started job freeze and hence my options dwindled.I was laid off in Jan 2009.To save my status,I had to hurriedly find a project at what ever rate and what ever role and a company willing to take over my H1B.


At this point of time,I am aggressively looking to find a good job in India and go back .Also I am trying to find a better paying project in US.I would choose the option which becomes available first.

Apart from nightmares of H1B and green card,you have to live a very secluded life as people from other races would not like to have any social relationship with you.Like it or not but you will have to live in a community where Indians are there and you will have to befriend some of them to get some kind of social life.You will be missing all the Indian festivals .You will be missing your parents and brother and sisters back home.You will not be able to take care of your old parents .Your children will lose out on the love and experience from the company of grand parents , aunts and uncles.

My advice to youngsters from India would be that they can come here to get the experience of living and working in a different country but they should plan a short visit(2-3 years or at most till their initial 6 years of H1B) rather then coming with the expectation of settling down here.

I would encourage readers to share their experiences so that lot of careers are saved and more talented people stay in India and not come here to waste their life for saving some money and getting a green card.