The visa, which allows foreign experts to work in the U.S. only if they are sponsored by a local company, demands the employer to file a petition with U.S. immigration.
This means that should Kabir’s employer choose to terminate his contract, he would only have three months to search for a new company. An unsuccessful attempt would result in his leaving.
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A person rides a bike on the Google campus in May 2019. Photo by AFP |
“We invest in this country, contribute to it, yet securing a work visa remains a struggle. From day one, we get just 90 days of unemployment, you need to find a new job or leave. That pressure is always there,” Kabir told DW, using a pseudonym.
While the H-1B visa for decades has been a vehicle for U.S. tech firms to recruit foreign employers, analysts are concerned that companies are taking advantage of the program to put pressure foreigners who rely on their sponsorship.
Ron Hira, professor at Howard University, believes employers are misusing the program to replace, compete with, undercut, and undermine American workers.
Hira said because H-1B workers are temporary and tied to their sponsors, they lack the same rights as U.S. employees.
They are less likely to refuse their employers because losing their job means losing their visa, making them highly vulnerable due to their employer’s control over their legal status.
A victim of such abuse is India-based software engineer V Puvvad, who in December received an offer for a job at a tech giant in San Francisco.
She quit her job in India and was prepared to move when the U.S. employer revoked the offer even after giving her a written confirmation, citing “changing visa dynamics” as the reason, she told Times of India.
“I feel cheated. Why offer a role when you’re not sure about sponsoring the visa? They later said that they would issue my offer letter again when the whole discussion is settled and there is a concrete decision after Donald Trump assumes office. But how long can I wait?” she added.
Vivek Wadhwa, CEO of Vionix Biosciences, a Silicon Valley life sciences company, describes this situation as an “industry loophole” and Silicon Valley’s “dark secret.”
While foreign skilled workers heavily power the California technology hub, major tech companies often prefer hiring H-1B visa holders over Green Card applicants.
Wadhwa suggests that large technology companies prioritize stable employees who are less likely to leave and can be paid lower salaries, framing it as an economic decision.
Indians are even more affected by the loophole as around 70% of H-1B approvals go to them every year.
India has a strong interest in maintaining the H-1B program because its workers send substantial remittances back to India, and Indian IT services companies heavily rely on these visas for their outsourcing operations.
NDTV World reports that some Indians are experiencing job offer revocations, visa processing delays, and warnings of possible future job losses.
This has heightened anxiety among professionals, who worry that the ongoing immigration debate in the U.S. could incite negative sentiment towards Indians, potentially leading to hate crimes targeting them.
“My worry is that this [resistance to H-1B visas] could also spark animosity towards the Indians living there,” Ashish Chauhan (whose name has been changed on request) told the BBC.
“But I can’t park my ambitions, put my life on hold and wait for the volatility to subside because it’s been like this for years now.”
While foreigners are in limbo about their job prospects in the U.S., the existence of the H-1B program is still being debated.
“The first Trump administration tightened H-1B visas by increasing denial rates and slowing processing times, making it harder for people to get visas in time. It is unclear whether that will happen again in the second Trump administration,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration scholar at Cornell Law School.
“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.”
Frustrated with the system and its uncertainties, many skilled immigrants are choosing to return to India to establish their own businesses.
Vivek Wadhwa predicts that India will develop multiple Silicon Valleys within the next five to ten years and has even moved his own company there.
Wadhwa warns that if the Trump administration exacerbates the challenges for skilled foreign workers, the “immigration debate is going to blow up in America’s face,” leading many talented individuals to take their skills and innovation elsewhere.
