Silicon Valley's reluctant housewives: immigration law bars women from work

When engineer husbands relocate to pursue dream jobs, their H4 visa-holding wives must cope with the resentment and loneliness of losing their own careers

The South Bay H4 visa holder's support group is having lunch in Palo Alto. The group organizes several meet-ups a week: coffees, dinners and shopping expeditions. Today, turnout is high. Fifteen women - some carrying babies and toddlers - take their seats at the table running down the centre of an upscale burger restaurant. The contrast with the other customers - groups of software engineers and VC associates carrying silver laptops - is striking.

These are the wives of Silicon Valley: women who are integral to the continued success of the Valley's multibillion-dollar computing industry - but also entirely invisible to it. Their husbands are the engineers who, headhunted from across the globe, emigrate to Silicon Valley as H1B "skilled workers", helping to drive innovation in companies like Apple, Google and Facebook.