Getting a raw deal on a green card

I’ve been in the U.S. as an H-1B worker for almost six years now, and while I’ve managed plenty of successful projects, one job I’ve never managed to complete is landing a green card.

I was trained as a business analyst. But when I first came to the United States, the consulting company that brought me over, a firm I’ll call “Acme Technologies,” put me to work as a project manager for an ERP implementation at a major test lab in Princeton, N.J. Acme seemed pleased at the prospect of my coming to work for them and promised to take care of processing my green card application. From my first day at the office, however, I felt a lot of animosity from the staff.

Maybe that’s why the project manager title didn’t last very long. On my third day of work, I was demoted to “consultant” without any explanation, and another programmer was given the PM position. I still had all the same responsibilities, though. Worse yet, the new PM kept changing his mind about what we were supposed to do, which slowed us down a lot. Our client was annoyed because I kept missing my deadlines.

Some six months later, my boss at Acme asked me to update him on the project. The VP who gave my position to the other programmer was there, too. Instead of telling my boss about all the delays his protégé had caused, he simply declared that I had failed as PM. Next thing I knew, I was cleaning out my desk and calling my lawyer to find out how quickly I needed to book a flight back to Cochin. When I asked Acme how my green card application was proceeding, they changed the subject.

Luckily, a competitor was looking for a consultant who knew VB and ASP, and the woman who hired me promised that she’d handle all the arrangements needed to procure my green card. I signed up without hesitation and transferred my H-1B visa. A year passed  -- a year of working long overtime hours and weekends without any overtime pay.

When my boss told me I had to work on Christmas Eve, I called the company lawyer and asked him for a status report on my green card application. He told me that my employer had never submitted any documents. When I confronted the owner, she first told me that the papers had been delayed because of my lack of experience in certain areas. Then, after a few minutes, she admitted she hadn’t filed because it was too expensive.

I found a new job with a company that took on my H-1B. Same promises, but this time I got them in writing. (I’m a slow learner.) I’ve been with this outfit for almost three years without a single salary increase. When I pointed out that the other PMs in the company were getting yearly increases and bonuses, my boss told me that the expenses they’d incurred for the green card processing precluded my receiving the same pay package.

Meanwhile, do I have a green card? Of course not. I’m still waiting for the processing backlog to be cleared. So I’m stuck at a low-paying job with no hope of a raise. And my six-year window as an H-1B is closing fast.

If you’re an H-1B looking for that green card, take care! There are plenty of employers who will promise you the world when, in fact, they’ve got you chained to your desk, going nowhere.