The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program

Winner of the ASA Section on Asia and Asian America's Book Award on Asian America\nHonorable Mention, 2024 Social Science Category Book Awards, given by the Association for Asian American Studies\nHonorable Mention, 2022 Betty and McClung Lee Book Award, given by the Association for Humanist Sociology\nUnravels how US visa laws fail Indian professional workers and their legally dependent spouses and families\nThe Opportunity Trap is the first book to look at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on women and men visa holders in Indian families in America. Comparing two distinct groups of Indian immigrant families ―families of male high-tech workers and female nurses―Pallavi Banerjee reveals how visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral in fact have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses.\nDrawing on interviews with fifty-five Indian couples, Banerjee highlights the experiences of high-skilled immigrants as they struggle to cope with visa laws, which forbid their spouses from working paid jobs. She examines how these unfair restrictions destabilize―if not completely dismantle―families, who often break under this marital, financial, and emotional stress.\nBanerjee shows us, through the eyes of immigrants themselves, how the visa process strips them of their rights, forcing them to depend on their spouses and the government in fundamentally challenging ways. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at our visa system, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.