AFP
Donald Trump and Elon Musk defended the visa program
Ashish Chauhan dreams of pursuing an MBA from a US university next year – a goal he describes as being “etched in his brain”.
The 29-year-old finance professional from India (whose name has been changed upon request) hopes to one day work in the United States, but says he now feels conflicted amid immigration dispute sparked by supporters of President-elect Donald Trump for a long time. US Visa Program.
The H-1B visa program, which brings skilled foreign workers to the United States, is criticized for undercutting American workers but is praised for attracting international talent. The once-critical president-elect now supports the 34-year-old program, while tech billionaire Elon Musk defends it as the key to attracting top engineering talent.
Indian nationals like Mr. Chauhan dominate the program, receiving 72% of H-1B visas, followed by 12% for Chinese citizens. The majority of H-1B visa holders worked in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with 65% in IT-related jobs, in 2023. Their median annual salary was $118,000 (94 000 £).
Concerns over H-1B visas are linked to broader debates over immigration.
A Pew Research report shows that U.S. immigration increased by 1.6 million in 2023, the largest increase in more than 20 years. Immigrants now make up more than 14% of the population – a figure not seen since 1910. Indians are the second largest immigrant group – after Mexicans – in the United States. Many Americans fear this surge in immigration will hurt job prospects or hinder assimilation.
India has also overtaken China as the largest source of international students, with a record 331,602 Indian students in the United States in 2023-2024, according to the latest Open Doors report on international educational exchange. Most rely on loans, and any visa freeze could potentially devastate family finances.
“I fear that this (resistance to H-1B visas) could also create animosity towards the Indians living there. But I cannot put my ambitions aside, put my life on hold and wait for the volatility is calming down because it has been like this for years now,” says Mr. Chauhan.
Efforts to restrict the H-1B program peaked during Trump’s first term, when he signed an order in 2017 increasing application screening and fraud detection. Rejection rates climbed to 24% in 2018, compared to 5% to 8% under President Barack Obama and 2% to 4% under President Joe Biden. The total number of H-1B applicants approved under Biden has remained similar to Trump’s first term.
“The first Trump administration tightened H-1B visas by increasing denial rates and slowing processing times, making it harder for people to get visas on time. It’s unclear whether this will happen again under the second Trump administration,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell Law School, told the BBC.
“Some people like Elon Musk want to keep H-1B visas, while other officials in the new administration want to restrict all immigration, including H-1B visas. It’s too early to tell which side will prevail.”
Indians have had a long-standing relationship with the H-1B visa. The program is also responsible for “the rise of Indian-Americans as the most educated and highest-paid group, whether immigrants or natives of the United States,” say the authors of The Other One Percent, a study of American Indians.
American researchers Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh noted that new Indian immigrants spoke different languages and lived in different regions than the first arrivals. The number of Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu speakers has increased, and Indian-American communities have moved from New York and Michigan to larger groups in California and New Jersey. The skilled visa program helped create a “new Indian-American map.”
Atal Agarwal returned to India from the United States because he was in a “stalemate” with an H-1B visa.
The biggest appeal of H-1B visas is the ability to earn significantly higher salaries, according to Mr. Chauhan. The United States offers higher salaries, and for someone who is the first in their family to obtain professional qualifications, earning this much can be life-changing. “The fascination with H-1Bs is directly linked to the wage gap between India and the United States for the same engineering positions,” he says.
But not everyone is happy with the program. For many, the H-1B program is an ambitious path to permanent residency or a U.S. green card. Although the H-1B itself is a temporary work visa, it allows visa holders to live and work in the United States for up to six years. During this time, many H-1B holders apply for a green card through employment-based immigration categories, typically sponsored by their employers. It takes time.
More than a million Indians, including dependents, are currently waiting in employment-based green card categories. “Getting a green card means committing to an interminable wait of 20 to 30 years,” says Atal Agarwal, who runs a company in India that uses AI to help find visa options around the world for education and employment.
Mr. Agarwal moved to the United States after graduating in 2017 and worked in a software company for a few years. He said getting the H-1B visa was fairly straightforward, but then it seemed like he was “in a dead end.” He returned to India.
“It’s an unstable situation. Your employer has to sponsor you and because the path to a green card is so long, you’re basically tied to them. If you lose your job, you only have 60 days to find a new one “Every person who leaves for the United States on their merits should be able to obtain a green card within three to five years.”
This could be one of the reasons why the visa program is linked to immigration. “H-1B is a mobility visa for highly skilled workers. It is not an immigration visa. But it is mixed with immigration and illegal immigration and is becoming a sensitive issue,” Shivendra said Singh, vice president of global business development at Nasscom, India’s technology industry business group, told the BBC.
Many in the United States believe the H-1B visa program is flawed. They cite widespread fraud and abuse, particularly by large Indian IT companies, which are the main beneficiaries of these visas. In October, a US court found Cognizant guilty of discriminating against more than 2,000 non-Indian employees between 2013 and 2022, although the company plans to appeal. Last week, Farah Stockman of the New York Times wrote that “for more than a decade, Americans working in the technology industry have been systematically laid off and replaced by cheaper H-1B visa holders.”
Nasscom’s Mr. Chowdhury says H-1B visa workers are not underpaid, with their median salary more than double that in the United States. Companies also invest tens of thousands of dollars in legal and government fees for these expensive visas.
Besides, it’s not a one-way traffic: Indian tech giants have hired and supported nearly 600,000 American workers and spent more than $1 billion to upskill nearly three million students in 130 American universities, according to Mr. Singh. India’s tech industry has prioritized hiring American workers and only hires employees on H-1B visas when it is unable to find locals with the skills they need, he declared.
India is working to ensure the security of the H-1B visa program as Trump prepares to take office later this month. “Our countries share a strong and growing economic and technological partnership, and the mobility of skilled professionals is a critical part of this relationship,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.
So, what should students who aspire to a job in the United States do? “Any changes to immigration to the United States will take time to implement. Students should choose the best university for them, wherever it is. With good immigration advice, they will be in know what to do,” says Yale-Loehr.
For now, despite the political turmoil in the United States, Indian interest in H-1B visas remains firm, with students determined to pursue the American dream.
