Spouses of high-skilled immigrants aren’t allowed to work. That’s finally changing.
Roxana Rohde hates the look people give her, when she goes out in San Francisco with her husband, and doesn't have an answer when someone asks where she works.
"'Ah, you are this kind of woman; you don't want to work,'" Rohde paraphrases their thoughts. Then, she has to explain that her visa doesn't allow her to get a job, and the patronizing starts. "'You have a dog, right? You have so much time! You could have a child...'" Rohde mimics again, with exasperation. "I would like to be able to decide on my own when to have a child!" Lately she's just started telling people she works at home, just to avoid the conversation.
"I'm really tired of explaining this visa to people," moans Rohde, who is 31. "It's really hard and frustrating, because I'm a smart woman!" It's true -- she has degrees in computer science and math and worked for three years in her native Romania before Tesla sponsored her husband's H1-b visa to come work in the United States in November 2012. But the visa she can get as a dependent, the H-4, doesn't allow her to get a work permit until her spouse gets a green card. That's taken a toll on her marriage.
"I was even jealous of my husband, because he was working and I was not," Rohde says. "I went from being an independent woman, with my own money, time and schedule and friends, to becoming completely dependent. I cannot even buy a pair of underwear without my husband knowing it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/09/spouses-of-high-skilled-immigrants-arent-allowed-to-work-thats-finally-changing/
