Indian H-4 entrepreneurs in limbo as U.S. rethinks visa rules

February 22, 2018

Nitin Venugopal is an Indian engineer who has an H-1B visa but has chosen to be on an H-4 visa, meant for dependents of H-1B visa-holders, to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. H-1B visa regulations require its holders to earn a salary. Mr. Venugopal invoked his dependent status, linked to his wife’s H-1B visa, when he cofounded a gaming start-up with two American colleagues, in New York. “Salary was not available then,” he told The Hindu. People like Mr. Venugopal – hundreds of them – are facing a serious risk now, as the Donald Trump administration may end work authorization for spouses of H-1B holders. It was a 2015 executive action by the administration of President Barack Obama that allowed these people to leave jobs and become job creators in America.

Read it at The Hindu