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AFPAshish Chauhan dreams of going for an MBA at an American university next year – a goal he explains will be “imprinted in his brain”.
The 29-year-old Indian economist (whose name has been changed upon request) hopes to eventually work in the US, but says he now feels a sense of tension between them. entry line initiated by supporters of President-elect Donald Trump on the US long-term visa program.
The H-1B visa program, which brings skilled workers to the US, is criticized for undermining American workers but praised for attracting international talent. The president-elect, once a critic, now supports the 34-year-old program, while billionaire Elon Musk defends it as the secret to achieving high-quality engineering.
Indians like the Chauhans dominate the program, receiving 72% of H-1B visas, followed by 12% of Chinese nationals. The majority of H-1B visa holders work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, with 65% in computer-related jobs, in 2023. Their median salary was $118,000 (£94,000).
Concerns about H-1B visas are linked to broader immigration disputes.
A A Pew Research report shows that immigration to the US will increase by 1.6 million in 2023, the largest increase in more than 20 years. Immigrants now make up more than 14% of the population – the highest since 1910. Native Americans are the second largest group of immigrants – after Mexicans – in US. Many Americans fear that increased immigration will destroy job opportunities or hinder immigration.
India has also surpassed China as the largest source of international students, with a record 331,602 Indian students in the US in 2023-2024, according to a recent study. Open Doors report at the International Educational Exchange. Many are dependent on credit, and any visa suspension can cost a family money.
“My concern is this [resistance to H-1B visas] They can also create hatred for the Indians living there. But I can’t put my ambitions on hold, put my life on hold and wait for the instability to subside because it’s been like this for years,” Chauhan said.
Efforts to curb the H-1B program reached a peak during Trump’s first term, when he signed a 2017 executive order to increase program review and fraud detection. Disapproval rates rose to 24% in 2018, compared to 5-8% under President Barack Obama and 2-4% under President Joe Biden. The total number of H-1B applicants approved under Biden remained the same as during Trump’s first term.
“The first Trump administration strengthened H-1B visas by increasing denials and reducing processing times, making it harder for people to get visas in a timely manner. It is unclear whether this will happen again in the second Trump administration,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, Research Analyst graduates of 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 ban all immigration, including H-1Bs. It’s too early to tell which side will win.”
Indians have a long relationship with the H-1B visa. The program is also responsible for “the rise of Native Americans to become among the most educated and high-income, immigrant or native-born in the US”, say the authors of The Other One Percent, a study on Native Americans.
US researchers Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh observed that the new arrivals in India speak different languages and live in different places than the previous arrivals. Hindi, Tamil and Telugu speakers grew, and Indian-American communities moved from New York and Michigan to large groups in California and New Jersey. The skilled visa program helped create a “new map of Indian-America”.
The main attraction of H-1B visas is the opportunity to earn higher wages, according to Chauhan. The US offers high wages, and for someone who is the first in their family to achieve professional qualifications, receiving a high salary can be life-changing. “The interest in H-1Bs is directly related to the wage gap between India and the US for the same technical jobs,” he says.
But not everyone is happy with the program. For many, the H-1B program is a way to secure permanent residency or a US green card. Although the H-1B itself is a temporary work visa, it allows visa holders to stay and work in the US for up to six years. Meanwhile, most H-1B holders apply for a green card through immigration agencies, which are supported by employers. This takes time.
More than a million Indians, including dependents, are waiting in the queue for employment-based green cards. “Getting a green card means signing up for an endless wait of 20-30 years,” says Atal Agarwal, who runs a company in India that uses AI to help get visas around the world for education and work.
Agarwal moved to the US after graduating in 2017 and worked for a software company for several years. He says that getting the H-1B visa was easy, but it seems that he has “reached the end”. He returned to India.
“It’s not permanent. Your employer has to support you and since the path to green card is very long, you are bound to them. If you lose your job, you only have 60 days to find a new one. Those going to the US should have a path to green card within years. three or five.”
This may be one reason why the visa program was linked to immigration. “H-1B is a skilled worker visa. It is not an immigrant visa. But it is discussed by immigrants and illegal immigrants and it is a difficult issue,” he said. Shivendra Singh, vice president of global marketing at Nasscom. India’s technology business community, he told the BBC.
Many in the US believe that the H-1B visa program is flawed. He cites widespread fraud and abuse, especially by large Indian IT companies who are the recipients of these visas. In October, a US court found Cognizant guilty of discriminating against more than 2,000 non-Indian workers between 2013 and 2022, although the company plans to appeal. Last week, Farah Stockman of the New York Times he wrote that “for more than a decade, Americans working in the technology sector have been displaced and replaced by holders of low-cost H-1B visas”.
Nasscom’s Singh says H-1B workers are underpaid, as employers have to pay them more than the current or actual wages of US workers in the region. Companies also invest thousands of dollars in legal and government fees for these expensive visas.
Nor has it been a one-way street: Indian tech giants have hired and supported nearly 600,000 American workers and spent more than a billion dollars educating nearly three million students at 130 US colleges, according to Singh. Indian technology companies have prioritized hiring from the US and bring in workers on H-1B visas only when they cannot find local people with the skills they need, he said.
India is working to keep the H-1B visa program safe as Trump prepares to take office later this month. “Our countries share a strong and growing economic and technological partnership, and the flow of skilled professionals is very important to this relationship,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.
So what should students who want to work in the US do? “Any change in immigration to the US will take time. Students must choose the best college for them, wherever they may be. With good immigration advice, they will be able to know what to do,” says Mr. Yale-Loehr.
Meanwhile, despite the political turmoil in the US, India’s interest in H-1B visas remains strong, with students determined to pursue the American dream.
