Indian aeronautical engineering student Sudhanva Kashyap believes he has mapped everything he needs to get to the United States, just making Washington’s sudden and expensive skilled worker visa even more expensive.
Friday’s changes to the precious H-1B visa, including a new $100,000 fairy tale, shocked the tech industry and made American companies scramble to figure out the impact.
The White House hastily clarified that the new fee will be a one-time payment, rather than the annual fee announced by Howard Lutnick on Friday, an American businessman, will only increase uncertainty.
The cost change shocked students like Kashyap, who hoped to enter American universities and the U.S. job market.
Kashyap, a 21-year-old from the Indian Tech Hub in southern Bengaluru, imagines himself going to a top American university, Stanford University goal.
“Back to when fairy tale is leaves, this is still something you can fix; it would be easier to convert a student visa to an H-1B.” AFP.
“I’m very disappointed… With the fact that things stand, my main dream has cheated on me.”
The H-1B visa allows companies to sponsor foreign workers with professional skills, such as scientists, engineers and computer programs working in the United States, initially for three years, but can be expanded to six.
The United States issues 85,000 h-1B visas on the lottery system every year, and India accounts for about three-quarters of the recipients.
Lutnick took Donald Trump in the Oval Office, detailing the new measure, and the U.S. president also launched a $1 million “gold” residence program he previewed a few months ago.
Several leading companies quickly advised their H-1B visa employees not to leave the country while figuring out these implications. Some people who have boarded the plane and disembarked are worried that they may not allow re-centering.
American Dream
Data released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shows that there were 422,335 Indian students in the United States in 2024, an increase of 11.8% the year before.
Indian IT industry association Nasscom said shortly after the new visa measures initially announced on Friday.
It said the “business continuity” of technology companies will be disrupted and soon pointed out how Indian IT companies contribute to the U.S. economy and are by no means “security threat.”
Shashwath vs. a 20-year-old chemical engineering student in Bangalore, said the new fee was too high to consider sponsoring a foreign candidate.
“I will now explore other countries… Going to the United States is my priority, but it is no longer,” Shashvas said.
He said many people like him might try to find other places, such as Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
He said the Indians “make a significant contribution to the American economy—whether it was the students who went there or the people who worked there.”
“So, they (the United States) will also be hit in one way or another.”
Immigration suppression
Trump has been in his sight of the H-1B program since his term, and the current visa iteration has become the latest move in the second semester of major immigration crackdowns.
Silicon Valley companies rely on Indian workers, who either move to the United States or come and go between the two countries.
India’s own stuck outsourcing industry also relies on decades of work permits, although it has softened in recent years.
In the first half of the fiscal year 2025, industry leader Tata Consulting Services alone received approval for more than 5,000 H-1B visas.
Sahil, a 37-year-old senior manager at an Indian consulting firm, returned from the U.S. last year after living on an H-1B visa for nearly seven years last year.
“I can tell every second or third person in the IT field about a dream of settling or visiting a job in the United States,” he said.
“We want to see fewer Indians migrate to the United States in the future. This may mean that these people will now start looking for other countries.”
