Indian immigrant doctor in US, fearing Covid-19, prepares deportation for family
- IndiaGlitz, [Friday,May 15 2020]
“If I get sick and if something happens to me, it’s basically over for my family,” Dr Parth Mehta, an Indian immigrant doctor living in the US, was recently quoted as saying by NBC Asian America. You guessed it right. The physician is a frontline Covid-19 warrior. That explains why he is saying what he is saying.
A Yahoo news story reports that the doctor is working on his family members' deportation procedures out of an apprehension that they will not suffer should something unthinkable happen to him as a doctor treating Covid-19 patients. In a notebook that he recently prepared, Mehta put out information related to his investments, social media login credentials, etc.
As many as 1,27,000 immigrant physicians live in the United States and a majority of them are from India. They work on H-1B visas. Should they lose their jobs, they face the risk of being asked to leave the country with their families. If a H-1B visa holder dies, any H-4 dependent family members become undocumented and instantly subject to removal, an official was quoted as saying by Yahoo.
In this regard, an organization has been advocating for legislative solutions to protect immigrant doctors. Should Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act be introduced and passed, doctors like Mehta will stand to benefit.