Thousands of immigrant technology, including Indians, are living in the United States in uncertainty on their future under the strict immigration policies of President Donald Trump. Major technical companies, including Google and Amazon, are reportedly being asked to leave their H-1B visa holder employees not to leave the American soil out of anxiety, they cannot be allowed to return.
According to a report by the Washington Post, the rates of refusal for high-skilled visas may increase, as he did during President Trump’s first term at the White House. The report said that the Trump administration’s attempts to end automated citizenship for those born in the US are also afraid of H -1B visa holders that their future children may be stateless.
The US’s H -1B visa program allows American employers to appoint foreign workers in so -called special businesses. Every year, 65,000 such visas are issued through a lottery system. In recent years, Indians have received the most H -1B visas, followed by Chinese and Canadian citizens.
Dependence of tech industry on immigrants
The immigrant technology of Silicon Valley has long been seen as one of the major forces behind American competition in the technology sector. According to a 2018 study by the Think Tank National Foundation for American Policy, there was an immigrant founder or co-founder in more than half of the US start-ups worth more than $ 1 billion. Some of the largest technical giants officials in the US are NRIs, including Microsoft, Google, Uber and CHIP veteran NVidia.
But under Trump’s immigration policies, the future of this community in the country is uncertain. Experts believe that reducing the technical industry from the technical industry may obstruct America’s ability to compete with China in the race to develop sophisticated techniques such as artificial intelligence.
“There is a lot of anxiety and nervousness now … it seems that it seems (administration is) just gaining maximum speed, and we do not know what is around the corner,” Malcolm Gochel, the leading attorney of Goshel Law, a San Francisco-based firm, which focuses on business immigration, which serves customers in the technical industry, said by Washington Post.
According to the report, Amazon had the highest number of H -1B visas approved among all major technical firms in the US, followed by Google, Meta, Microsoft and Apple. Tesla, whose billionaire CEO Alone Musk is close to President Trump and is leading the administration’s efforts to cut federal expenses, approved 1,767 approved H1B in the financial year ended in September 2024. It also accounts for outsourcing to companies such as Infosys and Cognizant for a large part of H1B applications.
H -1B workers worried
However, at the end of last year, before taking oath of office, Trump, law firms working for Google and Amazon, warned the employees of the companies with a visa that they should think twice before traveling abroad, out of anxiety, they could not be allowed to return to the US, according to the report of the Washington Post.
At least two H -1B visa holders told the publication that they had to cancel their travel plans to India for fear of re -entering the US.
An Indian immigrant said that his elder daughter was born an American citizen, but his second child’s future seems opaque because they cannot get citizenship in America or India. “There is an assumption that everyone who is not an American citizen can be illegally here,” he told the publication through a lawyer.
Uncertainty has also created some practical challenges, as many immigrants are always publicly carrying their documents. “When we are roaming, we always take our documents,” the other worker said through his lawyer.
Immigration lawyers are also reporting concerns among immigrants due to concerns over unexpected changes in visa processes, which are negatively affected by their productivity.
“This certainly affects their performance,” an HR representative of a technical firm in Silicon Valley explained the Washington Post. “The danger is that some action will be taken against them.”
The HR representative stated that uncertainty is also adding the cost of the company, as they have to pay some H -1B extensions to speed up processing to combat the respective delays.
Uncertainty on Visa and Green Card
The issue of H1B visa has emerged as a bone of a dispute between Trump’s supporters. It was visible in December when both sides argued on X whether Trump should promote or suppress efficient immigration.
Elon Musk wrote on Christmas X, “The number of super talented engineers and super -motivated people in the USA is very low …” If you want to win your team championship, you need to recruit top talents, “Aleon Musk wrote on X on Christmas. He received a pushback from some Republican, including a former President’s expectation, who said that he also said that he said that he is more involved in the education of the former President, which includes more in the education. American-bats should be trained.
So far, Trump has not said anything about ending the H1B program or other skilled visas; However, this was part of his agenda in his first term.
Meanwhile, processing of green card requests, which is the way of immigrants for permanent residence, is also facing unprecedented delays. Even Arvind Srinivas, CEO of AI Company Perplexity, recently paid a price of $ 9 billion, stating on social media that he is waiting for three years for the green card despite the establishment of a company that gives employment to hundreds of people.
Srinivas posted on X, “People are not mostly known when they talk about immigration.”
