'US Was My Only Home': The Story of Indian Man Forced to Self-Deport to Taiwan

"I am losing a little hope every day, thinking about when is the next time I will see my family."

Roshan Taroll, 25, grew up as a regular kid in the US. He enjoyed going for basketball games, formed close friendships in school, and loved his family dearly.

Taroll moved from Mumbai to Boston as a child in 2008 after his mother felt that pursuing the 'American Dream' would be worthwhile for her two sons, and that a US education would be a great boon to their professional lives.

The bright young man, with hopes of making his mother proud, was, however, forced to abandon that dream after the scourge of 'ageing out' of the green card process fell upon him and forced him to self-deport to Taiwan – leaving his family behind.

This is his story.

'Never Felt Immigration Was Going to Control My Life'

Taroll was just 10 years old when he moved to the US on an H4 dependent visa attached to his mother's H-1B visa. H4 visas are given to a dependent family member of an H-1B visa holder who is a spouse or unmarried child under the age of 21.

"Growing up in the US, I never felt that immigration was going to be such a controlling aspect of my life," Taroll told The Quint. "As I got older, I soon realised that there are limitations to what I can do as an H4 dependent as compared to what other kids can do."

Just a year after coming to the US, Taroll's mother enrolled herself in the green card process in 2009. The family had full faith that she would get selected in the process – which would then herald a path to citizenship for her sons as well.

During the waiting period, however, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

"It was a tough time for me and my family," Taroll laments. "I was a first-year student at Boston College at the time and so I was shuttling between completing my final exams and visiting my mother at the hospital."

Despite the best efforts of medical professionals, the cancer spread aggressively and turned fatal. Taroll's mother passed away in 2018 – becoming one of the thousands of Indians who died tragically in the US while still awaiting a green card.

"My mother had a strong belief that if you worked hard and did everything correctly, you will be able to make it here," Taroll tells The Quint. "It really pains me to know that she wasn't able to receive her green card even though she waited for so long in the backlog."

Self-Deportation: The Only Option Left

While he was still coming to terms with the loss of his mother, Taroll was faced with the crushing possibility of ageing out of the green card process. Suddenly the fears of abandoning his father and younger brother became all too real.

Children of H-1B visa holders who were not born in the US are permitted to live in the country on H-4 dependent visas only till they are minors. Once they turn 21, their future in the US becomes uncertain.

Although the government allows family members to apply for residence even after the death of their principal petitioner, that hope was dashed as well. Taroll aged out of the green card process in the year 2020 when he was still a student at Boston College.

He then had no choice but to convert to an F1 international student visa to complete his education as that was the only way to remain in the country. Doing so, however, meant paying a far higher tuition as compared to that paid by the families of American children.

"I didn't see myself as an international student," he says, "because the US was the only place I knew as home."

After graduating, Taroll started working for a semiconductor company in San Francisco on an OPT (Optional Practical Training) – which is temporary employment given to legal immigrants in relation to their major area of study for one or two years.

In the meantime, his company submitted his application in three different H-1B visa lotteries – the odds of being picked in which are devastatingly low. "I hoped that I would get selected in the green card process while my OPT was ongoing, but that didn't happen," he says.

Taroll was then left with limited choices. He would either have to enroll in another course in college as an international student, once again paying exorbitant fees, or return to his home country. However, neither of these options were viable.

"For lots of us, returning to our country of origin means returning to a place we haven't been to for a very long time and don't really have any ties to."

Roshan Taroll

Taroll then chose what he believed to be the best of the bad options available to him. After being approved by his employer, he decided to work for his current company in Taiwan and moved to the city of Shin Chu last month – where he has been living in corporate housing.

While Taroll says that he is grateful that his employer saw value in him and retained him in another office, he adds that moving to a country on the other side of the world has taken a toll on his mental health.

"It's hard moving to a place where there is a language barrier, and which is so far away from home. I keep thinking about when is the next time I will see my family. My future is still very unclear, and I feel like I am losing a little bit of hope every day. I'm just trying to take it one day at a time."

Taroll says that the only silver lining amid all the misery is that he might finally get the chance to visit India – a country he hasn't seen in the last 16 years. Taroll's family hails from Kerala but he spent most of his younger years in Mumbai.

"My childhood in India was a formative time and I am proud of my Indian heritage," he says, "I have some extended relatives there and I hope to go and visit them soon."

Meanwhile, Taroll is still trying to keep hope alive for a pathway to US citizenship and is in talks with his employer about the possibility of moving back to the US.

"A lot of immigrant families, they didn't do anything wrong. They worked hard, played by the rules... they did what America told them to do. But they still languish in the backlog and have to suffer for no fault of their own. I am one of them, and it's definitely sad to know that I wasn't able to achieve my mother's dream."

Roshan Taroll

Improve the Dream 

Highlighting the tragic case of Taroll and thousands of others like him is a youth-led organisation called Improve the Dream, which was founded in 2017 to support young immigrants who grew up in the US as child dependents of visa holders, and who face an uncertain future due to the US' deeply flawed immigration system.

The organisation has been advocating for the permanent end of the ageing out conundrum and providing a path to citizenship for every child who grows up in the US, regardless of status.

Dip Patel, 28, the Indian-origin founder of Improve the Dream, spoke to The Quint about efforts being undertaken to convince the US Congress of the urgency of this dire issue.

"We have consistently been pushing for the passage of the America's Children Act, which was introduced three years ago and is now one of the most bipartisan bills in Congress," he says.

The bill includes several provisions that would provide protections to legal immigrants who came to the US as children. Some of them include:

1. The right to obtain permanent residency for those who have been living in the US for at least 10 years and have graduated from an institution of higher education.

2. Establishing ageing-out protections that lock in a child's age on the date on which they file for a green card rather than the final action date.

3. Providing work authorisation for children of long-term visa holders whose green card applications are pending, if they are at least 16 years old.

Patel says that his organisation also submitted a letter to the US government on 13 June this year urging action to protect children facing the risk of ageing out. The letter was signed by four dozen members of Congress.

"Uncertainty about the future is something that all children of legal immigrants go through, and that adds a lot of stress and pressure in day-to-day life," says Patel, who moved to the US from India in 2005 as an H4 dependent.

While Patel currently holds an H-1B visa, which has allowed him to stay in the US legally at least for the current time, there was a period when he himself was facing the possibility of self-deportation.

"I aged out of the green card process seven years ago. After graduating from pharmacy school, I started working for a hospital on an OPT during the COVID-19 pandemic. They wanted to retain me but were unable to under the current circumstances, and I was going to self deport. But I was able to find another hospital which eventually allowed me to stay," he told The Quint.

While Patel says that he feels fortunate to have had transient options that allowed him to stay in the country, not everybody is as lucky as him – which is why he has been pushing for timely legislation.

"The reason I am still in the US is that I was able to get a temporary work visa. But for thousands of people like Roshan, who were forced to leave, it's not always a possibility. That's why we need urgent action."

Dip Patel

The curse of ageing out is not a new conundrum and has been an immutable part of the US' deeply flawed immigration system for years. As per a think tank called Cato Institute, around 90,000 children of immigrants – mostly Indians – will age out of green card eligibility during the waiting period.

Further, according to data released by the US government, more than one million Indians are in queue for green cards in the top three employment-based categories as of November 2023. This perennial waiting period is due to a per-country limit of a mere 7 percent for obtaining green cards, regardless of the population share of that country's citizens in the US.