Foreign scientists stung by immigration bureaucracy

High visa demand strands thousands of workers overseas

By Emily Wax

THE WASHINGTON POST
2:00 a.m. April 13, 2009

NEW DELHI, India – When Surojit Sarkar got a call that his father had suffered a paralyzing stroke, he packed a small suitcase, kissed his wife and 10-month-old daughter, and rushed to the airport for the first leg of his flight from Atlanta to India. Sarkar, an only child, wanted to be by his father's bedside, prepared for the worst.

Sarkar thought he would be in New Delhi for just a few weeks. Now, more than three months later, his father is in physical therapy, but Sarkar is still in India, trapped in administrative limbo over his U.S. work visa status. He said consular agents flagged his renewal application for security reasons.
Sarkar is one of thousands of highly skilled scientists, professors and technology workers from Beijing to Belarus who have been stranded in their home countries in recent months, upsetting their lives, their jobs and their children's schooling. Many wonder whether the United States still wants its foreign scientists.

“When I said I have a Ph.D. and worked with vaccines, the visa officer abruptly stopped what he was doing. I must have uttered a keyword for some security threat,â€