Spouses of Indian and Chinese tech workers could be stripped of right to work in U.S.

Tens of thousands of foreign nationals living legally in the United States could soon lose government permission to earn a living while they are here.

The Trump administration could end a program as soon as February that allows the spouses of legal foreign workers, mainly tech workers from India and China, to obtain their own work visas.

Ending or changing the Obama-era rule could have major effects in western Wake County, N.C., where a group of 200 people — almost all women — have organized to fight against the potential change, writing letters and meeting with their members of Congress.

Abhigna Polavarapu is among them. She came to the United States on a student visa, earning her masters’ degree in bioinformatics and a doctorate in computational chemistry. Now, on a visa for spouses of highly skilled workers holding H-1B visas, she’s working as a research scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill.

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