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U-turn on US visas for Indian tech workers (under pressure from Musk)
Trump, who takes office on 20 January, opposed visas for highly skilled jobs, but changed his mind after comments from Elon Musk, whose companies rely on Indian labour. Yet, many US companies have cut job offers, while others have warned their foreign employees against travelling outside the United States to avoid not being able to return.
New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Indian H-1B visa holders have been advised not to travel outside the United States in the coming months to avoid getting caught up in new rules that might ban them from ever setting foot on American soil again.
Under the three-year H1-B visa, which has been in place for 34 years, employers can hire foreign skilled workers for highly specialised jobs.
Speaking about immigration in the United States, President-elect Donald Trump has criticised the programme, arguing that it disadvantaged American workers. However, influenced by Elon Musk, he seems to have changed his mind.
“The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX. Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is (sic) because of H1B,” Musk wrote on X in late December. “I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
Eventually, Trump, who will take office on January 20, told the New York Post: “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favour of the visas. That’s why we have them.”
The current debate was sparked when the president-elect appointed Sriram Krishnan as an advisor on artificial intelligence. Born and raised in India, he moved to the US in 2007 to work at Microsoft, later moving to other IT firms like Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter. He obtained US citizenship in 2016, but Trump's far-right supporters lashed out at him on social media.
Some Indian newspapers report that several Indians had their job offers revoked due to “visa-related concerns”. To avoid dealing with red tape, several US companies are turning to remote hiring.
Indians account for 72 per cent of H-1B visas, followed by Chinese, at 12 per cent. In 2023, most beneficiaries worked in IT (65 per cent) or science and mathematics, with a median annual income of US$ 118,000, hired mostly by large US IT companies, including those owned by Elon Musk.
According to a report by the Pew Research Institute, immigration to the United States increased by 1.6 million in 2023, the largest increase in the last 20 years, and Indians represent the largest group after Mexicans.
Indians also topped the Chinese at US universities, with 331,602 students in the 2023-2024 academic year.
In late December, the US embassy in India reported issuing more than a million visas for tourism, business and education for the second consecutive year, with a fivefold jump for Indian visitors in the last four years.
More than two million Indians travelled to the United States in the first eleven months of 2024, a 26 per cent rise over the previous year, the US mission in India added.
In a press release, the embassy also mentioned that the US State Department completed a pilot project for the renewal of H-1B visas, allowing Indian workers to renew their papers without having to leave the country.
In recent years, H-1B visas to Indians came under closer scrutiny. In 2018, during Trump's first term, the refusal rate rose to 24 per cent compared to 5-8 per cent under Barack Obama's administration.
Under Joe Biden's presidency, the rate dropped to 2-4 per cent, but the total number of visas granted was the same as in Trump's first term, since application times increased, made "harder for people to get visas in time," Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell Law School, told the BBC.
“Some people like Elon Musk want to preserve the H-1B visas, while other officials in the new administration want to restrict all immigration, including H-1Bs. It is too early to tell which side will prevail,” he explained.
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23/06/2023 17:05
12/11/2018 09:42
