For many Indian immigrants, holding a US green card symbolizes more than just permanent residency — it’s a passport to stability, opportunity, and the culmination of long, uncertain years navigating America’s immigration maze.
Beyond job flexibility and the ability to sponsor family, it also represents a crucial stepping stone toward citizenship and long-term security, especially for future generations. Yet in a digital age shaped by migration, dating, and diasporic identity, this coveted document is also being thrust into spaces it doesn’t belong — like the early stages of romance.
A 21-year-old Indian-American university student recently took to Reddit to voice a deeply personal frustration: being reduced to her immigration status by men from her own community.
“I’ve gone on dates/conversed with people from all sorts of backgrounds… somehow the only time I’ve ever been offered a green card as a way to flirt has been by Punjabi guys,” she wrote. “We’ll be ten minutes into a convo and boom — ‘you know I could get you a green card, right?’”
The post, both candid and cutting, struck a nerve. “It’s not even just awkward anymore. It feels dehumanising… It turns something that could have been meaningful into something transactional,” the person said, lamenting how even within her community, she’s perceived through the lens of paperwork rather than personality. “It hurts more because it’s from people I want to feel understood by.”
Urging for mutual dignity, the person added, “I’m not trying to call anyone out. I just wish there was more self-respect on both sides. More identity.”
The post sparked an avalanche of responses. One user recounted a similar trend in the UK, where “paper marriages” were casually suggested as immigration solutions. “I brushed it off as a one-off… didn’t realise how rampant this was until I discussed it with a few other friends,” they said.
Another commenter, recalling a job interview on an F1 visa, said a recruiter flippantly told them to “just marry a citizen.” Their response: “Marriage isn’t a transaction. At least for me.”
Yet not all replies dismissed the green card as irrelevant. “As a H1B who is waiting in the US for a Green card since 2006… the wait for greencard is 150+ years,” wrote one user. “Of course you should marry for love… but don’t rule anything out especially if you are on F1 or non-immigrant status.”
One comment tied these behaviors to broader cultural patterns. “There’s a tendency \[among Punjabis] to flaunt anything ‘material’ — money, connections, immigration status,” they said, adding that traditional dynamics often frame women as needing to be “provided for.”
The original poster’s story, though deeply personal, opened a wider conversation about identity, expectations, and the subtle ways legal status continues to shape interpersonal dynamics among the diaspora.