 "Indian-Americans, many in traditional dress, participate in a flag-raising ceremony in lower Manhattan to mark India's 77th Independence Day on August 15, 2023 in New York City. File Photo/Getty Images via AFP")
Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” or Maga base is targeting Indian nationals over the H-1B high-skilled work visa programme. As the United States president cracks down on immigration, his supporters are increasingly opposing the H-1B visas, which mostly benefit Indians.
The divisions in America are highly visible on social media, as conservatives slam the programmes like H-1B, claiming they are eating up American jobs. They are taking hateful and racist jabs against Indians while ignoring their contributions to ‘making America great’.
Let’s take a closer look.
US split over H-1B visas
The H-1B visas have remained in focus since Trump returned to power at the White House in January this year.
The H-1B visa programme allows employers in the US to temporarily hire foreign workers in speciality fields.
Currently, the H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign workers are capped at 85,000 per year, including a 20,000 exemption for individuals with an advanced degree from a US university.
Indians have accounted for more than 70 per cent of all approved H-1B petitions since 2015, as per the American government data.
This has put a target on the backs of Indians, as Maga supporters oppose these non-immigrant visas.
A debate was triggered on social media after US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last week that he is involved in the process to replace the lottery-based H-1B system with a wage-based process, describing the existing system as a “scam”.
American right-wing political activist and social media personality Charlie Kirk wrote on X that the US “does not need more visas for people from India. Perhaps no form of legal immigration has so displaced American workers as those from India. Enough already. We’re full."
His remarks parroted Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s, who argued that a trade deal with India would mean more visas for Indians.
Daniel Di Martino, a PhD candidate in economics at Columbia University, came to the defence of the Indian community in the US. “Indians in America are a very positively selected group that my upcoming research with the Manhattan Institute finds Indians are the most positive national-origin group for the economy and federal budget. Indians in the US are good people, hard workers, law abiding, and highly educated," he wrote on X, responding to Kirk’s post.
How Indian-Americans fare in the US
Indians have long been regarded as the “model minority” in the US . The Indian diaspora in America has increased, with the population of people with Indian roots reaching an estimated 5.2 million (52 lakh) in 2023.
With this, Indian Americans are the second-largest Asian origin group in the country.
Chasing the American dream, engineers, doctors and scientists arrived in waves from India after the US Immigration and Nationality Act abolished national origin quotas for immigrants in 1965.
Today, the Indian-American community is one of the most influential immigrant groups in the US, as per a report released in June last year. Many are leading the top tech companies of the world.
“Indian Americans account for only 1.5 per cent of the US population, yet they continue to have an outsized and positive impact across different aspects of US society,” Indiaspora founder MR Rangaswami said at the time.
“The Indian American-driven innovation flows to the country’s bottom line and is laying the groundwork for the next phase of economic growth,” he said.
According to the Pew Research Center study, Indian-Americans are among the top earners in the US.
Indian-headed households had a median annual income of $151,200 (Rs 1.3 crore) in 2023. Households led by immigrants earned more ($1,56,000 or Rs 1.34 crore) than their US-born counterparts ($120,200 or Rs 1.1 crore). This meant Indian-Americans were among the highest-earning demographic groups in the US, the analysis found.
The study linked the financial success to their educational qualifications. About 77 per cent Indian-Americans aged 25 and older have a bachelor’s or advanced degree, much more than the 56 per cent rate for Asian-Americans overall. This educational advantage has transformed into professional success, with many joining high-paying fields.
The Indiaspora Impact Report: Small Community, Big Contributions, conducted by Boston Consulting Group, published last year found that Indian-Americans pay an estimated 5-6 per cent of all income taxes (i.e, $250 billion to $300 billion).
While helping boost the American economy, the professions that people from the Indian community are engaged in indirectly create 11-12 million (1.1-1.2 crore) American jobs, as per the report.
According to the report, research, innovation, and academia in the US have flourished due to the contributions of the Indian diaspora.
Discrimination faced by Indian diaspora in the US
In America, Indians are reduced to stereotypes. They are either successful or stark poor. The lack of any in-between is harming the community in the US, some say.
The opposition to H-1B visas by conservatives has led to Indians facing growing racism and political hostility in America, experts told Newsweek.
The rise in discrimination and bigotry against them is visible across social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and X.
“They [MAGA supporters] are nativist. That is a key part of their platform and agenda, and right now when we look at the context in which this is all occurring, it is very much anti-immigrant,” Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance and co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, told Newsweek.
“The American economy has, really since its founding, benefited from the labour of immigrants particular to the AAPI community.”
AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander.
Indian-American politicians and their spouses are also facing online hate.
During the 2024 presidential election campaign, the then Vice President Kamala Harris and the now-second lady Usha Vance were subjected to public speculations owing to their identities.
Vivek Ramaswamy and Kash Patel, who amplify Trump’s “America First” policy, have also been attacked on social media for being non-White.
As ties between India and the US take a nosedive over Trump’s tariff war, Maga has upped the racist attacks against Indian professionals, claiming they are replacing American jobs.
There is genuine fear that this online rhetoric could spill over into real life and leave the Indian community in the US vulnerable to harassment.
With inputs from agencies