India-born immigrant shares the days fearing to self-deport from US due to ‘ageing out’

The situation remains dire for children of legal immigrants, particularly Indian Americans, who face the risk of deportation when they turn 21 due to "aging out" of their dependent status. Approximately 250,000 such children, many of them Indian, could be forced to leave the US, despite having lived there since childhood.

On June 13, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC), addressed this issue by sending a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou. The letter, signed by 43 lawmakers, urged the Biden administration to take action to protect children of green card applicants from deportation due to aging out.

Current immigration policies require these children to leave the country if their parents have not obtained permanent residence by the time they turn 21. Forbes reports that over one million Indians, including dependents, are waiting in the employment-based immigrant visa categories, according to the National Foundation for American Policy.

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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated, “I talked about the bipartisan agreement that came together from the Senate where we negotiated a process to help the so-called documented Dreamers. And sadly, Republicans, and I've said this many times already at this podium today, which is that they voted it down twice. They voted it down twice.”

India-born immigrant shares ordeals of PR backlogs and ‘aging out’

While many India-born is freaking out about what will happen when they turn 21, their parents are suffering the agony of huge PR backlogs.

Dwarkesh Patel, one India-born, shared such an ordeal on X (formerly Twitter). “My family moved to the US when I was 8, but by the time I turned 20, my dad was still on an H1B (waiting to get processed for a green card). Once I turned 21, I would age out as his dependent, despite the fact that I basically grew up in the US,” he shared.

Patel, who is a podcaster, often features faces like Jeff Bezos, Tony Blair, Patrick Collision and more in his show, Dwarkesh Podcast. “Working on the promising podcast I was doing as a side project? A beyond impossible pipe dream,” he expressed.

Patel further detailed the dice shot with H-1b lottery system, stating, “I thought I'd have to become a code monkey after college, and even that only if I was lucky enough to win the H1B lottery.”

“Otherwise, back to India.”

He highlighted how's his H-1b visa-holder father spent the precious 9-years of his life in the US but never able to get a green card. “Even after 9 years, my dad wasn't able to get a green card - and the lines were only getting longer over time. I figured I'd be an old man before I could quit some FANG job and build my own thing,” he said.

“By some miracle, COVID travel restrictions cleared out the lines, and I got my green card literally months before I would have aged out.”

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“But it's unconscionable that we put the kids of high skilled immigrants through all this anxiety, and in many cases make them repeat the nerve-racking indentured life trajectory that they had to watch their parents go through.,” Patel concluded.

Dip Patel, founder of Improve The Dream, an organization representing these children of legal immigrants told PTI, “All major administrative actions have excluded this population from receiving benefit, despite the tools for such relief being available and being used for others. Until Congress can pass the bipartisan America's Children Act, we need urgent action by the administration to prioritize this issue, which has bipartisan support from Congress and the general public, and clear economic benefit.”

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