Sohail Shaikh’s fate was decided by lottery
– a lottery he lost. His American dream lay with a coveted H-1B
work visa, one of 65,000 snapped up in a single April day
Gilroy – Sohail Shaikh’s fate was decided by lottery – a lottery he lost. His American dream lay with a coveted H-1B work visa, one of 65,000 snapped up in a single April day. So many people applied this year that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services chose the lucky 65,000 at random from a flood of worthy petitions. Shaikh’s was left behind.
Unfortunately, the Gilroy man’s luck has rarely been good. Deaf since his birth in India, he lost both parents as a teen: his father to a heart attack, his mother to a robbery turned murder. His middle-class status afforded him an education at one of Bombay’s few schools for the deaf, said his uncle Anwar Shaikh, but Shaikh was often belittled by others, and faced limited job options in his home country. The United promised better choices – a degree from the world’s leading school for the deaf, accommodations for the hearing-impaired and even a career.
For a few years, that dream was a reality. Equipped with a student visa, Shaikh studied business administration at Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. Upon graduating, he got a year-long work permit and moved to Gilroy, where he balances the books for Makplate, a metal finishing company on Ninth Street that protects circuit boards and solar cells from corrosion. Hoping to draw out the dream, Shaikh applied for the H-1B: a work permit specifically for college-educated foreigners. That’s when his luck ran out.
Now, Shaikh must leave the country, departing for an uncertain future in his home country. His manager at the Milias Apartments, Bernard Wilder, complains about losing a model tenant; his boss, Naaim Ali Yahya, pleads with a reporter to call Congress. The president. Anyone who can help.
Jotting his thoughts down on a yellow legal pad, Shaikh writes, “I already make life here in U.S.” The 29-year-old man dreams of opening his own business – not a corner store, like other deaf Indians he knows – something challenging. Something like Makplate.
Is that possible for a deaf man in India?
“Not possible,” Shaikh writes rapidly, “but need to have a hearing partner or be brave.”
He stops, then underlines “Be Brave.”
Work visas snapped up in a single day
For educated immigrants such Shaikh, the American dream is sometimes a game of chance. Shaikh’s attorney, Isabel Machado, was stunned when the H-1B visas evaporated in just one day, after she scrambled to file her clients’ petitions on April 1. Never before have the permits disappeared so quickly, said Sharon Rummery, a USCIS spokesperson. Then again, more visas were available in the past: Congress temporarily approved nearly 200,000 H-1B visas in 2002 and 2003, said Rummery, feeding the dot-com boom’s demand for skilled workers.
“Subsequent to that, Congress would not renew levels [of the H-1B visa] in keeping with current employer demand,” said Daniel Shanfield, chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Santa Clara Chapter. “It’s been an ongoing bit of contention between employers and Congress.”
The immigration reform bill stalled in Congress would boost the number of H-1B visas to 115,000, and issue another 50,000 visas to the losers of this year’s lottery, such as Shaikh. But as the bill idles, and Shaikh’s exit date nears, the chances that it could help him are dwindling. Advocacy groups such as South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow say they want to see more H-1B visas issued, but they’re concerned by other provisions in the Senate bill, including decreases in family-based admissions and fewer skilled immigrant visas.
“The limitation [on H-1B visas] is only 65,000 and there’s such a huge need in the U.S. for companies to hire qualified trained professional workers in a myriad of fields,” said Machado, citing nursing and education as examples. “We need to fix this problem. If we don’t, the status quo obviously isn’t working.”
Opponents of expanding the pool of H-1B visas say foreign workers are crowding out U.S. workers with similar skills, and contend that employers often pay lower wages to such workers, despite a legal provision that requires them to give comparable pay.
“There should be objective criteria as to whether or not there’s any true need for foreign workers, and the objective criteria would be a labor-market standard that looked at whether or not wage offers in the industry are rising faster than inflation,” said Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “We’d also like a provision that says that if a comparably qualified American is available, he should be hired first.”
In addition, Martin argues, foreign workers’ visa options aren’t limited to the 65,000 H-1Bs: 20,000 additional visas are available for workers who’ve earned graduate degrees from U.S. universities, and thousands more are specially granted to universities and government research institutes.
Deaf face discrimination in India
Shaikh has two options for staying in the U.S., neither of them practical: Go back to school and renew his student visa, or marry a U.S. citizen. School is far too expensive for Shaikh, said his uncle Anwar Shaikh – especially since foreign students aren’t allowed to work full-time. As for marrying into the U.S., he’s already engaged to a deaf Indian girl, Fatema Binderwala, a graphic-design student he met through his family.
Nor is asylum likely, said Shanfield. To gain asylum, an immigrant must prove a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, nationality, religion, social group or political opinion. Whether the disabled constitute a “social group” has long been disputed, Shanfield said, and is unlikely to fly as refugee eligibility becomes more and more restrictive. There are exceptions: A Pakistani boy with autism gained asylum in February 2001, on the basis of his mother’s argument that autism is so severely misunderstood in her country that her son would face torture and persecution at home.
“It’s succeeded in a few cases,” said Shanfield, “but only a few.”
Yahya fears for Shaikh in India. If Shaikh opened a business, Yahya said, he’d face manipulation and bigotry. Deaf Indians lack the same legal protections as deaf people in the U.S., said Rajendra Desai, founder of Project Deaf India, which aims to expand opportunities for the hearing-impaired in India.
“India is 50 years behind the U.S.,” said Desai. To open a business, a deaf entrepreneur would have to jump dozens of government hoops, he explained, fending off others’ disdain all the way.
“He’d be fleeced of what little capital he has,” Yahya said, shaking his head. “He’ll be treated as a second-class citizen. I don’t think he’ll get any special treatment – he’ll get unspecial treatment instead.”
Shaikh himself is anxious. Few employers will hire the deaf, he said, and interpreters aren’t widely available. Amid an alphabet-soup of sign languages – a different one in every Indian city, said Anwar Shaikh – he has trouble communicating, even with those few people who can sign.
Still, Shaikh is trying to “be brave.” He’s already booked a ticket to India for June 22. Eyes focused on his yellow notepad, Shaikh writes neatly: “I am thinking positively and look forward not backward.”
Besides, he adds, maybe he can do some good in India: “Deaf people need a good leader like me,” he writes, “to help improve the life there.”
