“When I first came to the US as a student, I never imagine that my life would be ruled by visa durations, paper works, and the constant fear and uncertainty that comes with an H-1B visa for an Indian professional, given the near impossibility of obtaining a permanent residency status in the foreseeable future,” says 35-year-old professional software solutions engineer Mahendra Singh.
Singh is one of many Indian professionals on H-1B visas who have lost their jobs while on a work visa and had to move back to India in recent times. Today, months after returning and slowly beginning to settle back in his hometown in South India, Singh tells the American Bazaar that he feels fortunate to have had 60 days to carefully wrap up everything he had built in the U.S. over eight years and plan his return.
His journey to the U.S. had begun with the promise of a long-term future. “I was working on a H-1B visa in one of the top software companies stationed in Silicon Valley. After my F-1 years during which I completed my master’s program from a reputed American university, I got lucky and my H-1B was picked in the first attempt. Life seemed good, I bagged a great job, a year later I returned to India, got married and my wife and I began building a life in America. For us this was our present and future. While the initial few years were smooth as I was in a big corporation, constant news about the impossibility of securing a green card while on H-1B for Indians used to concern us but we always brushed those fears aside, thinking about living in the present,” Singh says.
That sense of stability changed abruptly when Singh lost his job.
“But all that came crashing down when about a year ago, I got the most shocking news of my life. It was Monday, a usual work day, I reached office and around mid-noon we had a concerning mail from the organization talking about restructuring and possible lay-offs. And while the entire office was abuzz about speculations and rumors, like it happens in such situations, one assumes that they will not be the ‘one.’”
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By the afternoon, Singh had received the news he had feared.
Detailing his ordeal further, Singh says, “By afternoon I received an email informing me that I had been laid off. I stayed silent for about half an hour and then called my wife. Our lives stopped momentarily.”
When asked whether he sought the help of immigration attorneys, Singh says, “I first wrote an email to the legal department in my organization asking about my options. They explained that I had 60 days to find another employment to continue my stay in the U.S. or to seek a change in visa status.”
With the clock ticking, Singh turned to informal sources of information. Immigration forums and social media chat groups became his primary guides as he found it difficult to afford an attorney without a paycheck.
“For the first two weeks, I aggressively posted my CV everywhere. There was total silence and I heard back from not a single place,” he notes.
As the job search yielded no results, Singh and his family began preparing for an alternative: returning to India.
By then, he says, “We thought of saving ourselves from the pain of looking for a job and facing yet another uncertain situation. The prospect of going home and starting my own software set-up seemed more stable.”
The decision to return, however, meant dismantling nearly a decade of life in the U.S. within just 60 days. For Singh and his wife, the next challenge was figuring out how to leave without losing everything they had built.
“My wife and I gave ourselves 45 days to keep a buffer period of unexpected delays. We put our house on sale and requested a close friend that we may need to move in with them for a few days in case a deal was struck sooner on our house. We got a good realtor and since our house was in a good school district, we were able to close in within the next four weeks. Sure, we took up the first offer that came our way but we didn’t have many choices,” Singh says.
Selling the house was only the beginning. The family also had to figure out what to do with years’ worth of belongings.
About how he managed other movable, Singh says, “Facebook marketplace became our go-to for the next few weeks and we sold off everything we could at a fraction of prices. From chairs to TV. What was not sold, found its way to the nearest Goodwill store.”
Then came perhaps the most difficult part of the transition: explaining the move to their young son.
“And then, came another tough task,” recalls Singh, “It was challenging to explain to my 6-year-old that he had a month with his friends and teachers in school and he may never see them again in his life.”
He adds, “While we informed my son’s school pretty early on, to ensure a smoother transition for my son, what turned out to be nerve wracking was to find a school in India that matched my son’s and my wife’s expectations. From World schools to IB board, here was an entire new world to be discovered. We contacted a school on the recommendation of relatives back in Bangalore and thankfully they assured that they will do their best to accommodate our kid mid-session.”
With the family’s departure approaching, the 60-day deadline became a race to finish the remaining logistics.
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Asked whether he was able to pack up everything within 60 days, Singh says, “It took us 50 days, where we worked round the clock to close everything. On the last day of our stay in the U.S. I sold my car – the first car I had brought after securing a job in the U.S. It hurt and it also signaled an end of an era in a cathartic way.”
Singh and his family eventually made it back to India within the allotted period. But the experience left him questioning how much time H-1B workers should realistically have to rebuild their lives after losing their jobs.
In the end, Singh says, “60 days are barely enough to pack everything up we somehow did it. But to imagine that even that grace period may be taken away from H-1B holders sounds like a nightmare no one wants to be in.”
Looking back on the experience, he adds, “I hope that proposal never becomes a rule and if it does, my advice to visa holders without an assured path to residency would be – ‘the sooner you return to India, the better it is.’”
Editor’s note: (Name has been changed on request to protect identity)