H-4 Visa Trap Drove an Indian Lawyer to Start Over in Canada

Shrutinder Kaur met her husband on Facebook by accident. She meant to message a different man with the same name – the one her father was trying to set her up with. The wrong click led to a pen-pal relationship, then marriage, then a move to Arizona in 2015 on an H-4 dependent visa.

Kaur, 35, had a law degree from India. Arizona did not recognize foreign law credentials, so the bar exam was closed to her. The H-4 visa did not automatically grant work authorization. She could not take a part-time job, start a business, or charge for the wedding photography hobby she saw other H-4 women pursue for free.

"I was happy that I moved for love, but felt like I'd chosen love over my identity," Kaur said. "I'm ambitious and wanted to be financially independent, but at times felt stupid and wished I'd read more about the H-4 visa conditions."

The U.S. has tightened H-1B and H-4 rules in recent years. In January, the Biden administration finalized a rule that let some H-4 spouses work if their H-1B partner had an approved green-card petition. But the relief was partial. Kaur had already left.

She enrolled at Hofstra University in New York for an MBA in 2016, taking out a loan near $100,000. The move required her to leave her husband in Arizona. Her student visa allowed her to work, and after graduating in 2018 she took an accounting job with a two-hour commute each way. Her husband, whose own H-1B status had run into problems, became her dependent and could not work at all.

"We knew people who had been in the US for 20 years and still didn't have green cards," she said. "We asked ourselves whether we wanted to earn US dollars and live in a fancy city like New York or have stability and a home we could share with our kids and parents. We felt the US would never provide the latter."

The couple applied for Canadian permanent residency in 2018. Her husband secured a job offer through networking before they moved. In February 2019 they drove from Jersey City to Ontario with a car full of belongings. At the first Tim Hortons they saw after crossing the border, they bought coffee and cried.

Canada removed the work restrictions immediately. Kaur found a job at the Bank of Montreal within months. She moved to a Canadian-headquartered insurance company in 2024. She gave birth to a son in 2023.

"I would've been a terrible mother in the US because I wasn't happy there," she said. The loan is paid off. She said she met other H-4 women who had stopped taking risks and accepted the visa's limits. "I didn't want to settle."