Home is where the heart is. Saying ‘Home is where the sustenance is’ is more appropriate in unprecedented times when fears of losing jobs and the visa status are looming large for a sizeable number of H1B visa holders who are currently stuck amid the lockdown in India. They have been interminably waiting, with their fingers crossed, for the lockdown to be lifted and international flights to be resumed.

But it seems that there is yet no hearing on the plight of H1B visa holders in the court of the Almighty, as India further extended the lockdown until May 17 in all COVID19 red zones including major cities with the continued restrictions on international travel.

Picture Credit: Tnls.com

An Atlanta-based NRI family of three members, including an H1B professional, his wife and a 3-year-old daughter, is stuck in India for the most obvious reason – travel restrictions. They are on the verge of losing the legal status in the United States due to the inevitable expiration of H1B visa in June 2020. They have to return to the US before or on June 6. But how? The H1B visa member of the family is not allowed to work remotely, so he has been on unpaid leave to this day.

Nitin Kaushik (name changed) on H1B visa, who came to visit his parents in India and got stuck amid the lockdown, has lost his job in the USA. His dependent wife and kid are in New Jersey and paying the bills from the depleting family savings. He needs to travel back to the US and get a job before his legal status expires in June 2020.

More than 200,000 H1B workers are facing the prospect of losing legal status by the end of June 2020, according to immigration policy analysts.

With the further extension of lockdown in India overshadowing chances for resumption of travel between India and USA, the H1B workers who are stuck in India have started pulling out all the stops to go back to the US and save their jobs or legal status. The plan that they are putting together is to charter a plane to fly back to the US. A charter flight from India to the US will cost them $900,000 (which equals to nearly 7 crore rupees).

An H1B visa professional, who is currently in Hyderabad, got the quote for a charter flight from a California-based company. Hundreds of H1B visa holders stuck across India responded to his social media posts seeking to full up a Boeing 767 with 278 seats. Some of them have been working from India, but they are not sure whether they will be allowed to continue working remotely.

They were not eligible for repatriation flights that the US government arranged for American citizens stranded in India. They have no way other than a charter flight to exit India and enter the US amid the continued travel restrictions. But there is yet no permission for charter flights. The government of India should come to their rescue and coordinate with the US State of Department to find a way out. If Indian government can plan to arrange repatriation flights for Indians stranded in the USA and other countries, why not operate direct Air India flights to the US where there is sustenance for H1B visa holders who are stuck in India?

Travel Beats is a leading overseas Indian community portal by Indian Eagle, a most trusted travel partner of Indian Diaspora in the United States. Subscribe to our free newsletter and tune in to our Facebook page for NRI community stories and latest updates on travel to India.

The post H1B Visa Holders Stuck in India Plan Charter Planes to USA for $900,000 per Flight, So They Can Save Their Jobs appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

President Trump’s tweet about temporary suspension of immigration into the United States, on April 20, sent jitters to immigrant communities amid the COVID19 pandemic. After critics labeled it as a hysterical reaction to the COVID19 impact that has stripped the US economy of over 20 million jobs, Trump dispersed the clouds of misgivings and fears around his ‘vague’ announcement on Twitter during a White House press briefing yesterday.

The new executive order temporarily banning immigration into the US as a means to save American jobs during the COVID19 crisis will apply to the issuance of new green cards for 60 days. He said, “The temporary suspension will be in effect for 60 days, after which the need for any extension or modification will be evaluated by me and a group of people, based on economic conditions then,” at the White House briefing on Tuesday.

Trump’s sudden announcement about suspension of immigration was felt just like a bolt out of the blue. It pressed the panic button for laid-off H1B visa holders in the US and H1B professionals stuck in lockdown across India. Many of those who are breathlessly waiting for India’s lifting of COVID19 travel restrictions hit Google and social media forums trying to know whether they are eligible for repatriation flights from India to USA. Indian nationals on H1B visa, whom the impact of COVID19 on the American economy left unemployed, started pleading with the Indian Embassy in USA and the Ministry of External Affairs India for evacuation from the US, under the fear of accruing unlawful visa overstay.

Much to the relief of the H1B community, the US President excluded temporary visa holders from the grip of the upcoming executive order banning immigration for 60 days or more. An official close to the Trump administration said (on condition of anonymity) that foreign nationals seeking employment based green cards and relatives of green card holders will be in the loop of the temporary ban on immigration. US citizens of foreign origin planning to bring their immediate family members to the country are, most probably, exempted from the immigration suspension, according to the official.

Alongside H1B visa, other temporary US visas including E2 for a category of investors, B1 for business visit, B2 for foreign tourists, and L1 visas for employees of foreign companies are also immune to President Trump’s temporary ban on immigration amid the COVID19 pandemic. However, immigration analysts opine that the ‘Trump’ card may flip over in the current volatile situation.

Trump’s supporters of stringent immigration policies said that President could have taken this opportunity to cut the number of foreign workers on H2B visa for seasonal jobs in the US. They called the temporary suspension of immigration ineffective and insubstantial, as all visa processing services have been suspended for weeks. Besides, the temporary ban on issuance of green cards will only increase the wait time for green card applicants by 60 days or more.

The US Tech Workers, an anti-immigration body advocating for Americans’ rights to dignified employment, described Trump’s temporary ban on immigration as a do-nothing immigration moratorium. They interpreted it in other words, “Feel free to come into America & take these American jobs so long as you will work for cheaper & remain loyal to the employer. Don’t worry about the 60 days temporary green card suspension. That’ll be lifted in no time & won’t affect you.”

According to New York Times, Trump softened his call for temporary suspension of immigration for guest visa programs under the pressure exerted by business groups from different industries where H1B and H2B workers are employed. Notably, there are Indian American CEOs and business honchos in Trump’s Great American Economy Revival Industry Groups that he recently formed to make the US economy overcome the COVID19 impact.

The post Trump’s Temporary Ban on Immigration amid COVID19 Targets Green Cards, not H1B and Other Visas appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

A whopping 67.3 million people speak a language other than English in the United States, according to the US State of Department’s 2018 stats. Among them are Indian immigrants who mostly speak in Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, Bengali, Punjabi and other native Indian languages at home. Hindi, Gujarati and Telugu are the most widely spoken Indian languages in the USA.

Picture Credit: 22under22.hercampus.com

To facilitate first-hand access to every minute detail of the Novel Coronavirus pandemic for the non-English speaking populace of the US, Indian American Pooja Chandrashekar has initiated translation of the COIVD19 information into more than 30 languages including Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati, Bengal, Punjabi, Urdu, and Tamil.

22-year-old Pooja Chandrashekar whose parents had emigrated from Bangalore, India is a first-year Harvard medical student. Knowing that half knowledge about anything is dangerous, which leads to spiraling of misinformation in communities, Pooja took up the initiative to help the vulnerable section of the non-English speaking immigrant community read and comprehend  the COVID19 facts and figures in the languages they speak and understand effortlessly.

Pooja Chandrashekar’s ‘COVID19 Health Literacy Project’ is aimed at containing the COVID19 spread by providing the community-based organizations with accurate information about the current global health crisis in native Indian languages. The lack of easily comprehensible medical information about Novel Coronavirus in languages other than English does actually spur the proliferation of the deadly virus.

In no time, over 150 medical students from 35 institutions across the United States joined Pooja Chandrashekar’s COVID19 Health Literacy Project in translating the COIVD19 information and curbing the spread of the pandemic.

Pooja, a resident of Virginia and her countrywide team pooled the most useful information from several government agencies including CDC. They simplified and summarized it before passing it on to several community organizations in various Indian languages, as well as Spanish, French, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Russian, Malay, German, Vietnamese, and Italian. The condensed materials, verified by medical experts, on dos and don’ts of COVID19 prevention are also available for download in different languages from the COVID19 Health Literacy website.

A Harvard graduate in biomedical engineering and global health policy, Pooja Chandrashekar has been to India on Fulbright Scholarship in public health research on rural students with learning disabilities. She is focused on getting the best of the intersection of healthcare and technology to help autistic adolescents improve their interpersonal skills. She is also committed to developing a system that leverages artificial intelligence to predict an impending environmental crisis. Clinical data science and medical device development are among her research interests. She is known for identifying high-risk patients in vulnerable communities.

A new technology that Virginia-based Pooja Chandrashekar has developed to help diagnose mild traumatic brain injuries in athletes and military individuals is currently under clinical trials at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in DC.

This story is part of our continued effort at Indian Eagle to promote good work for noble causes by Indians in USA.  We not only strive to make US to India air travel booking cheaper and easier but also cater inspiring stories, latest community news, and travel updates to Indian Americans through our free newsletters.

The post This Indian American Harvard Student Helps non-English-speaking Immigrants Fight COVID19 appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

The aviation and hospitality world has come to a standstill over the Novel Coronavirus pandemic. With the total number of COIVD19 deaths having crossed 10,000, international travel has become an impasse amid border shutdowns, flight cancellations, and visa restrictions. In the current volatile landscape of travel ban and restraints across geographies, hundreds of thousands of travelers are left not only confused, but also stranded.

While many Indians from the United States are stranded in India as they decided to stay back following Indian government’s revised travel advisory issued on March 11, Nishi Sharma on H4 Visa mastered her courage to travel back to the US from Bangalore despite the Novel Coronavirus threat. But, she was deplaned from the Bengaluru to Seattle flight to her utter surprise.

Nishi Sharma lives with her spouse, Amit Sharma, an Indian techie on H1B Visa in Salt Lake City, Utah. On learning about her father’s sudden demise, she visited her family in India leaving behind her two kids with her husband. After three weeks of stay in India, she was supposed to travel on Emirates Airlines from Bengaluru to Salk Lake City via Dubai and Seattle. She cleared the immigration and got a boarding pass at Bengaluru Kempegowda Airport.

Just like a bolt out of the blue, she was told that none other than  US citizens and green card holders could travel to USA amid the Coronavirus outbreak, as per a directive from the US Customs and Border Protection. Her immigration was cancelled and she was offloaded from the plane. One more traveler was deplaned from the same flight.

Being an Internet-savvy couple, Amit and Nishi take basic travel precautions whenever they book flights to India from USA or vice versa. In view of Indian government’s travel advisory, Amit called the US embassy in India just the day before Nishi was scheduled to travel from Bangalore. He got to know that there was no restriction on travel from India to USA.

Bewildered by what happened to his wife and the other passenger, Amit Sharma again contacted the US embassy in New Delhi. He is still waiting to hear from them. He would rebook his wife’s travel to the US once the embassy reverts to him with reconfirmation.

“There are several such cases wherein travelers are puzzled over ‘To travel or not to travel’ during the COVID19 crisis. India has banned all incoming international flights for a week starting March 22, and restricted the arrival of foreign citizens till April 15, but the United States has not yet issued any such restrictions for travel from India. Indians awaiting their flights to USA before or on April 15, 2020 should check with the airline and the embassy for any latest travel advisory or alert in order to avoid facing deplaned or denial of boarding,” said the chief customer relations officer of Indian Eagle, a most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians in USA.

Also Check: USCIS Advisory on Visitor Visa Extension during COVID19 Crisis 

The post This Indian on H4 Visa is Deplaned from Her India to USA Flight in Current COVID19 Situation appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.