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India has hit back at Donald Trump’s decision to impose a $100,000 fee on H1-B visas for skilled foreign workers in the US, sparking warnings by the Indian government that it would have “humanitarian consequences” and one minister claiming they were “afraid of our talent”.
On Friday, the US president announced new rules around the H1-B visas, which allows companies to hire foreign workers in skilled occupations like IT, healthcare and engineering, to work in the US for up to six years.
The H1-B visas are designed to allow US companies to hire skilled foreign workers in areas where there have been shortages in the domestic work market. India had become by far the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas, accounting for 71% of approved visas in 2024.
However, the White House said the visas were being “abused” to undercut American wages and outsource IT jobs, claiming companies were laying off thousands of US workers, only to hire cheaper foreign labour from countries such as India through the scheme.
A statement from India’s external affairs ministry over the weekend said the fee would have humanitarian consequences “by way of the disruption caused for families”.
The Indian government said it “hopes that these disruptions can be addressed suitably by the US authorities and emphasised that the exchange of skilled workers has “contributed enormously” to both nations.
In comments on Sunday, India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal said: “They are also a little afraid of our talent. We have no objection to that.”
The new fee, which is 60 times the current cost, came into effect on Sunday. It immediately sent ripples across the IT and tech industries, which are the biggest beneficiaries of the policy.
IT firms with clients such as Apple, JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet’s Google are among those reported to be impacted.
On Monday morning, the share prices of India’s biggest IT companies such as Infosys and Tata Consulting Services slumped in response to the H-1B visa fee hike.
Nasscom, India’s IT trade body, said the move would “potentially have ripple effects on America’s innovation ecosystem” and create “considerable uncertainty for businesses, professionals, and students across the world”.
The chief minister of the southern state of Telangana, Revanth Reddy, which sends a high number skilled IT workers to the US on H1-B visas urged Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to treat the issue on a “war footing”, warning that the suffering of Indian IT in America would be “unimaginable”.
Immigration lawyers in India reported receiving frantic calls over the weekend as confusion reigned over how the scheme would be implemented.
Before the White House clarified that the order applied only to new applicants and not holders of existing visas or those seeking renewals, companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Eli Lilly, Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Amazon advised employees on H-1B visas to stay put or return to the US before 21 September, forcing many workers from India and China to abandon travel plans and rush back.
One Indian worker on a H1-B visa told Indian news agency PTI there was “absolute panic”. “This is a travel ban,” they said, requesting anonymity for fear of losing their visa. “Even if a person has a valid H-1B visa stamped on their passport, if they are travelling, or are on holiday, you cannot enter the US unless they have proof of the $100,000 payment. No one knows what the process is, what the fine print is.”
Another India worker said the new policies by the Trump administration were making many already on H1-B visas reconsider staying in the US.
“People are really starting to question if they can continue to build their lives in the US because there’s such a high level of uncertainty around everything now,” they said.
The Chinese government has not yet responded to the news, but online in the country which provides the second largest number of H-1B visa applicants, there was a sense of confusion and panic.
Some social media users accused the US of “maliciously crafting policies purely to torment H-1B holders”.
“Even if Trump had outright banned H-1B entry with a single decree, it wouldn’t have been this insulting,” said one person on the video app, Xiahongshu.
“We have endured the hardships of studying abroad and struggling to find work in a foreign country,” said another. “No matter how capable or hardworking we are, in an era of constantly changing immigration policies, we are just tiny specks of dust.”
Additional research by Lillian Yang and Jason Tzu Kuan Lu
