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Journalism of Courage
On Saturday, a family of three — wife, husband and child — who were vacationing in Dubai rushed to Abu Dhabi’s international airport on receiving a call from their employer to return immediately to California. The reason? US President Donald Trump signing a proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas.
Speaking to The Indian Express over phone, the woman, who is from Telangana and did not wish to be identified, said, “We were told we need to cross the immigration line before midnight of September 21. We were relieved when we managed to, but several of our friends are in India and unable to get a flight out to the US.”
According to the World Telugu Federation, one in every three Indians in Silicon Valley is a Telugu-speaking person from either Telangana or Andhra Pradesh.
On Saturday, Telangana’s IT Minister D Sridhar Babu wrote to the Centre seeking its intervention in the matter. Speaking at a press conference, he said that 70-72% of H-1B visas go to Indians, and within India, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh dominate the H-1B ecosystem”.
“The government should introspect why India is facing such backlash in foreign policy…Trump has effectively ended the H-1B visa system,” said Babu.
As Trump’s proclamation played out, several IT companies sent out emails to their employees to return to the US as soon as possible.
Another family has kept their “life on hold”, they said. “My wife is in India and I am in the US. We do not know when we will be able to meet again,” said the husband.
Speaking from Boston, a professional who hails from Bengaluru said, “My H-1B expires in two years. If they allow me to stay, I will stay. If not, I will go back. I have already faced so many hurdles to get the visa that I am tired of fighting it out.”
An IT employee from Pune said, “I have been working on US projects, and about 60-70 % are managed and run by Indians. All of us will be hit by this.”
As news reached him, a 36-year-old IT employee who hails from Andhra Pradesh and works in Saudi Arabia gave up hope of ever getting an H-1B visa. “My company had selected me to be sent to the US in 2023. I have been going through the process for the past two years. But now, there is no way that a start-up company can afford this,” he said.
On September 6, when Shekhar’s father underwent open-heart surgery in Hyderabad, the 42-year-old Cognizant employee, who has lived in Dallas, Texas, since 2022 on an H-1B visa, did not think twice. He, his wife and two children, an eighth-grader and a third-grader, got on a flight to India. In Dallas, they left behind a car, a house purchased just last year with a $3,500 monthly mortgage, their children’s entire future.
Now, two weeks later, the family says they are stranded.
Shekhar was scheduled for biometrics in Chennai on September 21 and a visa interview five days later. Though he already held H-1B status in the US, his visa stamp had expired, and he was on a valid I-90 that requires him to get a fresh visa stamp if he leaves the US
“It was a family emergency, which is why I had no other option but to exit the country and apply for a fresh stamping here in Chennai,” he said.
His company had approved his leave, his job was intact, and his children were due back to school in mid-October. But the sudden proclamation has made his life uncertain.
Shekhar said he started off with about $70,000 annually in the US and now earns about $110,000.
In another corner of Hyderabad, a 35-year-old technology consultant from Telangana found himself in a similar bind. He first arrived in the US in 2015 on a student visa, completed his master’s degree in Virginia, and has since worked on H-1B status with multiple clients as a consultant. Most recently, he had been contracted on a project in Dallas, earning about $110,000 annually, the same as Shekhar.
Earlier this month, his fiancée’s mother died, and they rushed home. “I don’t understand the rule,” he said. “When I did a Google search, it showed me that if you already have a visa stamped, even if it is an old application, it won’t have an impact. But I am not sure.”
He has received little clarity from his employer. “I heard Microsoft employees got an email to return to the US and avoid any travel plans for the moment.”
His hope rests on the courts. “What I’m expecting is this will be temporarily held,” he said. “Because there will be lawsuits.”
At Delhi’s international airport, a 38-year-old senior software engineer from Hyderabad was bracing herself for an uncertain return trip. She has lived in the United States since 2013, on an H-1B, for a healthcare client. Her career was steady, and her return flight was booked for September 27.
She had flown home on September 8 for her father’s one-year death anniversary. “I don’t know what’s going to happen once I arrive,” she said, waiting near the departure counters during her layover in Delhi. “There’s a lot of panic.”
The numbers show how deeply India is implicated. People born in India are the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B program, accounting for more than 70 per cent of all petitions approved each year since 2015. Chinese nationals come a distant second, at about 12–13 per cent since 2018. Between October 2022 and September 2023, 72 per cent of the nearly 400,000 visas issued under the H-1B program went to Indian nationals.
During the same period, just four Indian IT majors, Infosys, TCS, HCL, and Wipro, accounted for about 20,000 approvals, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data.
At Indira Gandhi International Airport’s Terminal 3 on Saturday afternoon, Nabendu, who had come home to Kolkata after two years to join his family for Durga Puja festivities, had to cut his trip short.
With an education loan still hanging over his head and a February wedding to plan for, the 29-year-old said he had little choice but to return. Before he parted, he and his fiancée recorded short videos as keepsakes. “I don’t know when we will see each other again,” she said.
“Ever since the new regulations, people who were planning to travel to India are cancelling tickets. Those already here are scrambling to get back,” said Sriharan Balan, managing director of Madura Travels Service. “Since morning, flights are full and tickets are selling at a premium. We’re even hearing of people de-boarding planes in the US after check-in, unsure whether to travel at all.”
“The advice we’re getting from lawyers is: if you’re in India, return by midnight tonight, or risk being locked out,” said Krishu Kashyap, who has been in the US for eight years. “I don’t have children, so it’s less complicated for me. But many have families, schoolgoing kids, and mortgages. Nobody knows what happens if they cannot return.”
Tejas Kumar, whose job requires him to straddle lives between India and the US, said, “I don’t know if I will be there for another week or month. I have a house there, a car and bills to pay. If I don’t return to the US, I don’t know if my company will retain me — and if I take a job with them in India, it will be on a much lower salary,” Kumar, who spends half the year in India and half in the US, said. “For students who took loans hoping to pay them off in four years, this is devastating. Everybody is confused. Will they stop us at the immigration counter itself and ask us to pay? Nobody knows.”
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