 "America was not built in a day. The Indian community has done spectacularly well for themselves and America over the last 30 to 40 years. Representational image")
Think of the H-1B visa as the hidden support holding up Silicon Valley. You may not always notice it, but it’s crucial for helping the tech industry grow stronger and faster. For decades, the H1-B was a two-way deal. Companies got skilled labour they couldn’t find at home. And foreign workers, many of them from India, got a ladder to American labs, and startups.
As Chidanand Rajghatta very wisely says, “The United States simply does not produce high-quality or highly skilled engineers.” This is a generally acknowledged truth.
Now that the ladder is getting heavier, pricier and covered in new warning signs, it is not just a blow to Indian tech exports but can also be a self-inflicted wound on America’s competitiveness, innovation systems, and perhaps even its global soft power.
This year Washington announced a suite of changes that amount to a rethink and a squeeze of the previously hallowed H-1B regime. The White House has rolled out a proclamation that effectively attaches a six-figure price tag to the procedure of bringing many H-1B workers from abroad. The Department of Homeland Security is moving towards a wage-weighted selection system that will now prioritise high-paying jobs over the old lottery. These are tectonic shifts, not just tweaks.
Politics hides inside policy. The official rationale is nothing new. Protect American jobs, close loopholes employers exploit and “level” the playing field for US workers. Those soundbite goals have real appeal. Politicians win votes with them. However, when policy is designed around only optics and partisan theatre rather than the messy arithmetic of innovation, you get outcomes that look good on cable and not that great on balance sheets.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA $100,000 per worker fee might deter low-paid or questionable placements, but they will also deter the legitimate flow that keeps research labs running, startups rolling and universities hiring global talent.
Let’s be blunt about the motive. This is simultaneously protectionism and political theatre. Political leaders can campaign on “bringing jobs home” while claiming to be tough on offshore hiring, and honestly, those messages do land pretty hard on the voters. But policy designed to satisfy headlines risks ignoring two inconvenient facts.
Firstly, the H-1B population is not simply a monolith of low-wage interlopers. The median H-1B salary historically sits well above their national medians, and many visas are genuinely for specialised roles in engineering, research and higher education. Secondly, when the US slams its doors, the market will not simply stop. It will move.
So where will it move? Not just to India, not only. Tech talent and capital are perishable and mobile. If hiring in the US becomes harder and costlier, companies might offshore whole functions. Scale research in Bangalore or Krakow, or choose to base their next unicorn where hiring policy is friendlier. The consequences will not just be hitting Indian engineers. It is an erosion of the very environment that made the US such a magnet for cutting-edge firms.
Already commentators and tech chiefs are warning that punitive measures may nudge investment and research and development (R&D) overseas. The math is shockingly simple. If talent is being blocked or taxed out of reach, the firm will always follow the talent or the market.
There will be immediate economic costs too. Startups often run on scarce cash and the promise of hiring the world’s best engineers. A sudden spike in hiring costs or a shift to an income-based lottery skews early hiring towards only the richest and most successful firms and domestic pools that may or may not have the specific skills needed. Universities and labs recruiting top PhD students will feel the pinch.
Companies that have long relied on global teams, such as biotech companies or AI companies, will face having to pay higher wages, slower hiring cycles, and in some cases might simply relocate functions. Basically, innovation becomes slower and more expensive. This will stunt growth, reduce job creation, and ultimately harm American consumers and shareholders. Risks that have already been flagged by analysts.
Then of course, there is the geopolitical wrinkle. The H-1B pipeline has also acted as a soft power tool. It creates an alumni of American institutions who carry US norms, networks and influence back home. Tightening that pipeline will not just inconvenience job hunters; it will reduce the number of global business and academic leaders whose formative years were in the US.
Over time, that is bound to shrink American influence in the world. If you replace exchange with exclusion, you are going to lose friends, partnerships and future markets. No single policy switch will reverse decades of network effects overnight, but public diplomacy costs will accumulate.
And yes, of course, global rivals will start to notice when you start charging $100,000 just to enter the room.
In today’s America, where situations, friendships and global diplomatic relations are changing daily, is this change going to last? Policy is fluid. Loud proclamations meant to stun, lawsuits and a shifting Congress mean these moves could be diluted or hardened into law. However, temporary shockwaves do leave behind scars. Firms that reorganise supply chains and relocate teams don’t instantly reverse course in case of policy retreats. The private sector is notorious for hating uncertainty.
Elon Musk has been a huge fan of the H-1B visa and said often that “H-1B makes America strong”. He even went on to tweet, “The reason I’m in America with so many other critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and other great companies that made America strong is H-1B.” One can accuse Musk of being erratic and over the top, but there’s no argument against the validity of these words.
In fact, there’s this wrong assumption that all H-1B holders are tech people, when in fact this could not be farther from the truth. At any point in time there are ten thousand Indian physicians serving in rural America who are crucial to the American healthcare system. There are H-1B holders who go back and forth, who are either training people in America or learning skills that they come back to India and execute…and so forth.
What should worry American policymakers is not that India will suffer. India will adapt as it always does. But the US will lose its reputation and habit of building global talent ecosystems. Robust immigration policy balances protection for domestic workers with openness to skills that lift productivity. This current tilt towards punitive, revenue-driven or performative measures risks throwing that balance into a tizzy.
What will be the result? Higher costs, slower innovation, fewer stand-ups and quieter campuses for tomorrow’s Nobel laureates.
If the aim is to truly “protect American jobs”, do it with surgical policy. Better training pipelines, investment in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and fast tracks for positions that lack domestic supply. What’s the point of substituting a $100,000 tag on the scale and expecting prosperity to remain unchanged?
Lastly, national strength does not come from building higher fences; it comes from building a great ladder system. The H-1B was never perfect. It did require reform; instead, it got a headline-worthy sledgehammer. Closing off the portal to global talent might feel like a 30-second feel-good political hurrah; however, it is bound to disrupt an already well-established ecosystem that is heavily dependent on outside talent.
America was not built in a day. The Indian community has done spectacularly well for themselves and America over the last 30 to 40 years. Have Indians become a victim of their own success? Are they being punished for their contributions? Is this protectionism or self-harm disguised as patriotism?
The author is a freelance journalist and features writer based out of Delhi. Her main areas of focus are politics, social issues, climate change and lifestyle-related topics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.