Indians
Unwelcome Abroad
Donald Trump’s announcement on September 20,2025 that
the entry of H-1B visa holders will not be allowed unless their companies pay fee
of USD 1 lakh per worker. This sent
shock waves across India’s tech-services landscape. Currently, the H-1B visa fee ranges between
USD2,000 and 5,000, depending on employers’ size and other costs. More than 70%
beneficiaries of these visas are Indians. The next day, the White House issued
a clarification that the hike in visa fee will not be an annual feature, but a
one-time payment that will have to be made by companies for fresh H-1B visa
applicants.
The American dream of millions of Indians turned into
a nightmare. Hundreds of Indians who
were successful in the recently concluded H-1B lottery for the fiscal year
starting October 1 and were eagerly waiting to join their new employment will
be directly impacted. The high Tech-companies most hit by the Trump’s ‘H1B
Bomb’ are: Amazon, TCS, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Google, Deloitte, Infosys,
Wipro and Tech Mahindra Americas. Surprisingly, the Indian-American diaspora is silent over the
development; so also, the tech-giants- Elon Musk, Sundar Pachai and Satya
Nadella who were the creation of H-1B visas.
The Ministry of External Affairs, reacting to the
Trump’s announcement, said that the move will “have humanitarian consequences,
disrupting families” as the “skilled talent mobility and exchanges have
contributed enormously to technology development, innovation, economic growth,
competitiveness and wealth creation in both the United States and India.” The
opposition parties took a swipe at Narendra Modi for not taking a firm stand
against the “strong arms tactics” of Trump.
For decades, H-1B – a non-immigrant visa that allows
American companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations, including fashion
modelling – has been a pipeline through which Indian engineers, programmes and
consultants have gone on to play a big role in fueling the US innovation
economy. Indian professionals in the US have become founders, investors and
leaders of major tech firms. Now that gateway has been made prohibitively
expensive. That pipeline is threatened.
Though the fee hike does not apply to those already
holding the H-1B visas, the companies will evaluate their future options. If
sending new hires from India to the US companies costs an extra USD 1 lakh per
head, they will consider shifting projects to other countries. This will have
serious consequence. As it is, 60% of the visa recipients earn less than USD 1
lakh, which means that their employers will find it harder to justify hiring
such specialized workers from abroad. It further implies that the US keeps the
‘priciest’ elite talent, other countries absorb the rest of the mobile
workforce, while India mostly inheriting the leftovers
Of late, the
Indians – once considered a model minority community– have become the face of a
global immigration backlash. This backlash is seen across the continents. In
July, Santosh Yadav, who builds AI startups, was attacked in Adelaide, the
August ‘March for Australia’ singled out the Indian migrants; in Sydney a
right-wing protest held an anti-immigration rally. On September 9, a young Sikh
woman was raped in Oldbury, UK, and the perpetrators shouting at her “go back
to your own country’. In Britain, the
right-wing Hindu groups engineer anti-Muslim sentiments.
Sanam Arora, who
heads the National Indian Students and Alumni Union in the UK, says, the
illegal migrants arriving on small boats via the British Channel is linked to
the larger question of immigration, driving fake rhetoric about how immigrants
are taking jobs and how international students are taking over seats. Most of
the UK’s record-high net migration is student and work visas; students are temporary
residents who pay premium fees and contribute more than they draw. And yet, unlike in the US, Canda, or
Australia, the UK counts them in net migration figures used for policymaking,
making them easy targets, fuelling hostility. The acceptance of immigrants in
the British Society has always been conditional. In 1980s, when the UK stopped
granting citizenship to Indian and other Commonwealth citizens, it was a clear
sign that immigrants would only be welcome as long as it was politically
acceptable.
In the US,
Indian communities face parallel current. The H-1B visa holders and F-1
students are blamed for taking jobs. The mood among the Indian students has darkened:
green-card backlogs and tightening post-study work rules leave graduates uneasy
and the talk of too many STEM students creeping into state debates about
tuition and research jobs.
The American
dream was about fame, fortune and academic excellence. It was a country where
university meant a ferment of ideas. All
that is changed now. The Trump administration has launched a two-pronged attack
on two pillars that made the US a magnet for people- immigration and education.
America was a country that prided itself on being built by immigrants, their accomplishments
mattered, unconcerned about their parental and family background.
The foreign student
arrivals in the US are at a four-year low, with the number of Indian students
entering in August falling 45% compared to the same period last year,
suggesting troubling times for the higher education system. One of the major
reasons for the decline is the Trump administration’s ‘America First’
immigration policy. In May, the US temporarily paused viva interviews worldwide
and increased vetting, especially of applicants’ social media profiles. The
hold-up caused global backlogs, and longer waits at the US embassies, further
discouraging international students from pursuing advanced education in the US.
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The Indians are
unwelcome abroad. They are hated and disliked by the right-wing white supremacists.
It is important to understand why the Indian are unwanted. The surge of hatred
for immigrants across the world is unprecedented. It is not just the H-1B
issue. In the UK and Australia, the streets have recently seen hundreds of
thousands of local protesters gather to decry immigration. In Canada anti-Indian sentiment is growing and the Indians are attacked. The Indian-origin persons
are being targeted and assaulted across the countries. In European countries as
far apart as Poland and Ireland have seen similar protests and attacks on the
persons of Indian origin. There are wider issues at stake which impact the
Indian expatriate community.
Tara Kartha
Director, Research and Analysis, at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New
Delhi, in her article Behind the West’s rising dislike of Indian migrants
in The Hindustan Times, September,23, 2025, examines the reasons why the
Indians are disliked:
“The Right, throughout history, has risen amid
economic suffering, discontent with the ruling elite, corruption, and
unemployment. Official figures show 334 of 426 people arrested in 22 European Union
countries for terrorism related offences were linked to jihadist terrorism. Rabid
Islamist preachers such as the UK’s Anjem Choudhary have functioned with
immunity. Choudhary continued the radicalisation lectures across North America
despite the banning of his group, Al Mujahiroun. At the Al-Muhsinin Mosque in Bonn, radial
preaches encouraged the faithful to attend al-Qaeda training camps. Mosque,
institutes, and study centers with links to the Muslim Brotherhood were funded
in France. All of this has stoked Islamophobia. In Australia, 366 cases of
online Islamophobia abuse were recorded between January 2023 and November 2024,
as were 309 in-person incidents. Alongside, came Hinduphobia, turning into hate
against Indians.”
The term
‘Hinduphobia’ can be traced back to protests by Hindus in the US against the
California’s law of 2023 that sought to protect the marginalised people of Indian-origin
from caste discrimination; the Hindus objecting to the mention of caste
discrimination in school text-books as ‘Hinduphobia’ and bias against Indians. The
protesters organised by several Hindu groups in the US, including the Hindu
America Foundation, began to be portrayed as assertions of ‘Hindu nationalism’.
That is how the domestic Hindutva politics found its way into the US expatriate
community. The Hindu sites in the US foisted ‘community pride’ as an assertion
of identity, even as few politicians on both sides of the community fostered
hate against the other.
All of this came
together in a toxic mix of caste, religion, and divided political loyalties,
with communal overtones. The setting up of new temples across the US,
particularly the BAPS Swaminarayan temple in New Jersey – the largest Hindu
temple outside Asia - and “a slew of organisations aimed at drumming up support
from wealthy Indians in the US for political gains back home added to all
this.”
This snowballed
as the number of India immigrants grew, with Indians becoming the second
largest migrant community in the US after the Mexicans. It reflected the
surging demand for skilled Indians in high-paying sectors such as information
technology, health care, and finance, to name a few. This trend of migration was found across the
world, with the World Migration Report 2024 noting that Indians were the
largest migrant group in 2022. It was seen in the UK, where Indians typically
reside in upper-class neighbourhoods and earn far more than the other immigrant
groups. In Germany and Netherlands well-heeled Indians are establishing
businesses and creating a huge economic impact.
In short,
suddenly, Indian are everywhere According to the MEA report November
26 2024, there are 35.4 million people of Indian origin residing abroad. Every
year, 2.5 million Indians immigrate overseas, making India the nation with the
highest annual number of emigrants in the world.
What is apparent
is the marked shift from the era where Indian were known to live quietly and
unobtrusively to the one in which ‘nationalism’, ‘ethnically aware’ Indians are
being wooed by the political establishments in their adopted countries.
Narendra Modi making too frequent visits abroad and making it a point to
address the Indian diaspora wherever he goes, where the hired crowds chant
‘Modi…Modi…’, and arousing the narrow Indian identity, have infused
ultra-nationalism and extra-territorial- loyalty among the Indian expatriate
community. And now even the loyalty of
the Indian-American high-tech-giants- the CEOs of Microsoft and Google Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai respectively - is being
questioned by the white right-wing elements in the US.
The Indian
expatriate community in the US, by and large, remained more loyal to the
country of their origin, which they left, rather than to the country that adapted
and made them what they are. The Indian immigrants who take away the jobs of
locals, do not assimilate and integrate into the American society. Having an
identity and taking pride in one’s roots is one thing, and displaying ultra-nationalism
and jingo-patriotism towards India in the country of adaption is another. This
attitude of Indians alienates them from the local native people. The imposition
of huge hike in H-1B visa fee and the Trump’s MAGA project should be understood
in this context.
Well! the
experts and the analysts are jumping to conclusion that what Trump did is a
blessing in disguise; the reverse migration will see the talented technocrats
working for the development of the nation. This is easier said than done. As
“to retain talent, India must compete not just with the US but with every other
attractive destination.” That requires high quality accessible and affordable
higher education and greater opportunities for jobs and innovation at a time
when the lack of quality education and unprecedent unemployment make the
situation very gloomy and depressing.
More importantly,
the young talented youth should stop looking desperately to greener pastures abroad.
Those who migrate abroad are, generally, not grounded to reality; emotionally unattached
and disconnected with their own country There are many job opportunities in
many fields, other than the technical field, where their talent and creativity
can be used to find satisfying and fulfilling jobs, and meaning and purpose of
life. They must stay in India instead of looking to move to other developed
countries and play an active positive role in creating a country of their
dreams. And the Indian government should “showcase the real humility and
compassion of India’s rich civilizational history and follow this on the ground
in Parliament, institutions and in schools and colleges.”
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