Indian aerospace engineering pupil Sudhanva Kashyap thought he had mapped out every thing it could take to get to america, solely to have his plans upended by Washington’s sudden and costly change to its expert employee visas.
Friday’s modifications to the prized H-1B visas, which included a brand new $100,000 charge, rattled the tech business and left US corporations scrambling to determine the implications.
Hasty clarifications from the White Home that the brand new cost can be a one-off cost moderately than the annual charge introduced by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday solely added to the uncertainty.
The charge change rattled college students like Kashyap, who hoped to get into an American college and from there the US jobs market.
Kashyap, a 21-year-old from the southern Indian tech hub of Bengaluru, had pictured himself going to a top-tier American college, with Stanford his aim.
“Again when the charge was decrease, it was nonetheless one thing that you may pin hopes on, it could be simpler to transform the scholar visa to an H-1B,” Kashyap instructed AFP.
“I’m very upset… my major dream is derailed as issues stand now,” he mentioned.
H-1B visas permit corporations to sponsor overseas employees with specialised abilities — similar to scientists, engineers, and pc programmers — to work in america, initially for 3 years however extendable to 6.
The US awards 85,000 H-1B visas per yr on a lottery system, with India accounting for round three-quarters of the recipients.
Lutnick detailed the brand new measure as he stood beside Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace, the place the US president additionally launched a $1 million “gold card” residency programme he had previewed months earlier.
A number of main corporations shortly suggested their staff holding H-1B visas to not go away the nation whereas they discovered the implications. Some who had already boarded planes disembarked for concern they won’t be allowed to re-enter.
The American dream
Information launched by the US Division of Homeland Safety confirmed there have been 422,335 Indian college students in america in 2024, a rise of 11.8 % on the yr earlier than.
India’s IT business affiliation Nasscom mentioned quickly after Friday’s preliminary announcement that it was involved by the brand new visa measures.
It mentioned “enterprise continuity” at know-how corporations can be disrupted, and was fast to level out how Indian IT companies contributed to the US economic system and have been “not at all” a safety menace.
Shashwath VS, a 20-year-old chemical engineering pupil in Bengaluru, mentioned the brand new charge was too excessive for corporations to consider sponsoring a overseas candidate.
“I’ll now discover different nations… going to the US was a precedence for me, however not anymore,” Shashwath mentioned.
He mentioned many like him would possibly attempt to discover locations elsewhere, similar to Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
Indians, he mentioned, “contribute considerably to the American economic system — be it college students who go there or individuals who work there”.
“In order that they (the US) may even be hit, in in some way.”
Immigration crackdown
Trump has had the H-1B programme in his sights since his first time period in workplace, and the present visa iteration has grow to be the most recent transfer in a significant immigration crackdown in his second time period.
Silicon Valley corporations depend on Indian employees who both relocate to america or come and go between the 2 nations.
India’s personal huge outsourcing business has additionally trusted the work permits for many years, although that has softened lately.
Business chief Tata Consultancy Providers alone obtained approval for greater than 5,000 H-1B visas within the first half of the 2025 fiscal yr.
Sahil, a 37-year-old senior supervisor at an India-based consultancy agency, returned from america final yr after dwelling there on an H-1B visa for nearly seven years.
“I can inform each second or third individual within the IT sector desires of settling within the US or visiting to work,” he mentioned.
“We are going to see fewer Indians migrating to the US sooner or later. That presumably means these individuals will now begin taking a look at different nations.”
