By the end of February succeeding year, a 22-year-old woman will be forced to separate from her mother and teen brother and move out of the United States—the country where she has spent eight years of her life.
An Indian citizen, Sri Ponnada moved to Jamaica with her family when she was three years old. Nearly 10 years later, her family relocated to the U.S. as her mother began her internal medicine residency in New York. In 2012, the family once again relocated to Iowa, where Ponnada’s mother acquired a job as a doctor.
Ponnada registered at the University of Iowa to study computer science and English. Like any regular college student, she kept herself engaged outside class, writing for the college paper and helping run the college radio station.
But one fear always lingered. “While I was doing all this stuff, I was still struggling with major anxiety and depression because I was scared about whether or not I and my family would get our green cards,” she wrote on Facebook.
Because of her work as a doctor in an underserved community, Ponnada’s mother was eligible for the National Interest Waiver for EB-2 visa-holders to quickly get a green card, but the process was long-drawn-out.
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Ponnada “aged out” of her dependent visa last year when she turned 21. She confronted deportation by switching to the F-1 student visa to complete her education and work. However, even with the extension for STEM students, her current visa allows her to stay in the country only until February 2019.
A software engineer at Microsoft now, Ponnada tried getting an H-1B visa but didn’t make it through the lottery.
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“…in 6 months, I am going to be forced out of my home—the United States—because I aged out of a broken immigration (system) while my mom has been waiting for years in the employment-based green card system,” Ponnada wrote in her Facebook post.
“For people affected by my situation, in particular, I feel as though the law should protect kids who were brought here with proper documentation by their parents,” Ponnada said. “If my mom was approved for a green card but doesn’t have it yet because of the government’s backlog, why should my family be ripped apart?”
An estimated 40,000 children of H-1B workers on the dependent H4 visa face the same uncertainty as Ponnada.
Meanwhile, Ponnada’s impending deportation has left her family anxious and heartbroken. In a couple of years, Ponnada’s brother Sam, too, will “age out.”
By Sowmya
