Come to America, stay in the kitchen

SAN DIEGO — After three years searching for a job, Sashi Maniraju finally found one in late April.

"I'm in shock," she said. "I'm over the moon."

A 28-year-old architect who immigrated from India, she will start working as a drafter at a construction firm in Carlsbad, north of San Diego.

Getting back into a work routine proved harder that she thought. Ever since coming to America, Maniraju has spent most of her days at home in northern San Diego, playing housewife. She spends the weekend before her first day of work coordinating schedules with her husband, Muru, an engineer. Maniraju frets that she doesn't have enough office-appropriate clothes and if her 1-year-old son will be all right without her during the day. Her husband and visiting mother-in-law do their best to calm her nerves.

The joy of her new career could soon come to an abrupt halt.

Maniraju lives in the United States on an H4 visa —a category reserved for the dependents of H1-B foreign workers, most of whom are employed in technical and STEM-related fields. Dependents originally were not allowed any form of employment, even as minor unpaid internships or remote work outside the United States.

After much campaigning, they won the right to work in 2015, when then-President Barack Obama authorized the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to approve special work permits officially known as the H4 Employment Authorization Document or H4 EAD.

The ruling relieved families on temporary work status. Most workers employed on H1-B visas are Indian citizens and remain stuck in a decades-long backlog to obtain their green cards. In 2015, the regulation allowed work permits exclusively for H4 visa holders who'd already had their green card processing approved.

The move offered respite to dependents who would have waited years for permanent residency status.

"It made me feel like I had been given back my purpose," Maniraju said. "I had nothing to do without working. I just sat around and binged- watched TV, went shopping, called my family and cooked. It wasn' t enough."

Though welcomed by highly-skilled immigrants, the work permit has not gone uncontested. In 2015, a group of American workers banded together to form Save Jobs USA, a group aimed to protect the rights of working citizens. They claimed the work permit would allow more foreign nationals to replace American workers and filed a lawsuit against DHS. Though the case was initially dismissed, the current Trump administration has since agreed with its rhetoric.

A year and a half after its authorization, the special work permits were in peril again. As the early days of the Trump administration were ushered in, the president made good on his promise to crack down on the immigration of highly skilled workers. The "Buy American, Hire American" executive order signed by President Trump authorized DHS to begin the process of rescinding work permits for spouses.

Despite the happiness of a new job, Maniraju knows her days at work are numbered. If the special work permits are revoked, the family will begin considering "desperate measures."

"This is my home now," she said. "Even though I'm not a citizen. We don't like to consider leaving, but I see no other option if I have to spend the next 10 or 20 years without working."

Her work permit is valid for the next few months and can be renewed for another three years. If the revocation does happen, it isn't clear if it will be voided immediately or if she'll be allowed to continue working until its expiration.

"No decision about the regulation concerning the employment eligibility of certain H-4 spouses is final until the rulemaking process is complete," said Jessica Collins, spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

With the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in its final stages of reviewing the rule to end the program, more than 100,000 foreign nationals could be unable to work — again.