The weekend that shook Indian tech workers in the US

September 22, 2025 (MLN): USA’s move to hike the cost of skilled worker visas to $100,000 set off panic across the tech sector and among Indian professionals before the White House clarified that the fee would apply only to first-time applicants.

President Donald Trump’s statement on Friday sparked chaos.Tech companies told foreign employees to avoid international travel, immigration lawyers raced to interpret the order, and many Indian H-1B holders scrambled to book flights in case they were locked out of the US.

By Saturday, officials softened the policy, describing it as a one-off charge for new applicants.

The adjustment eased immediate fears but left lingering uncertainty over the future of the H-1B programme  a system long criticised for depressing American wages yet credited with sustaining innovation and plugging labour shortages.

Indians dominate the programme, securing more than 70% of approvals in recent years, compared with around 12% for Chinese applicants.

Their presence is particularly visible in technology, where over 80% of computer-related H-1Bs go to Indian nationals, and in medicine, where more than 8,200 approvals in 2023 were issued to doctors in US hospitals.

 India remains the largest single source of international medical graduates, who make up about 22% of the foreign-trained physician pool. In total, Indian H-1B doctors represent roughly 5–6% of the entire US medical workforce.

For India, the visa route has long been a ladder of aspiration, transforming small-town engineers into global earners and shaping industries that catered to their mobility.

For the US, the system supplied vital skills that seeded start-ups, filled hospitals, and eventually produced Indian-origin leaders at firms such as Google, Microsoft and IBM.

The median salary for new H-1B hires in 2023 was $94,000 lower than the fee itself making it unrealistic for employers to recruit foreign talent under the new terms.

White House retreat may have calmed immediate fears, but the episode emphasized a larger truth: the H-1B programme, which has powered US industries and Indian aspirations for three decades, now faces an era of deep uncertainty.

Copyright Mettis Link News