H-1B applicants have a difficult year to look forward to, as political opposition to the visas is bolstered by a series of measures from the U.S. administration.
The U.S. Embassy in India wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) that it began on December 15 to review the online presence of all H-1B and H-4 visa applicants in an attempt to limit the “abuse of the H-1B program.”
The U.S. Department of Labour also proposed a wage protection law last week, which analysts indicated would discourage firms from sponsoring H-1Bs for employees.
Partner at Immigration Consultancy Vialto Partners, Manish Daftari, informed CNBC that this would “substantially increase the prevailing wage across the board for all H-1B holders.”
He stated that “companies will most likely reduce the number of H-1B sponsorship” once this rule is implemented.
Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed a weighted selection rule that selects the highest-paid workers first when they are making selections in the H-1B lottery, which is said to be in final review.
“These rules could make the H-1B largely inaccessible to recent graduates and early career professionals– even if they work in emerging or critical fields,” warned Cecilia Esterline, Niskanen Center’s senior immigration policy analyst.
Any modifications to the H-1B regulations will also have a disproportionately negative impact on Indians since they have dominated the program with over 70 percent of the beneficiaries within the last few years.
The top five employers that sponsor H-1B visas include Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Tata Consultancy Services, and Google, as per the data provided by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Daftari added that “If one or both rules are implemented, there may be some job losses, but the biggest impact will likely be that companies move away from sponsoring H-1Bs for employees.”
Most of the H-1B workers are already experiencing massive stalling as the U.S. consulates in India are rescheduling their visa appointments in order to meet the social vetting criteria.
The rearrangement of the appointments that have taken place over the past two weeks, many times without prior notice, “has created substantial disruption in people’s ability to return to the U.S.,” said Daftari.
He noted that the majority of the December and January appointments were transferred to March and April, with a few even coming as late as August.
The U.S Department of State is reviewing social media of all H-1B and H-4 visa applicants around the world, as immigration screening is routine.
The social media review aims to determine the security threats and inconsistencies in the information of the applicants, including differences in job titles on LinkedIn, yet experts have cast their doubts on the necessity of additional scrutiny of all applicants.
Esterline stated that applying social media review to all cases, including renewing applicants, “is an inefficient and possibly ineffective policy” which could create “delays for American employers and consumers.”
However, more policy changes will be implemented in the coming year, which will pose more challenges to visa candidates.
Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, Amitendu Palit, said, “Most of these policies appear to be for appeasing domestic political constituencies.”
He has pointed out that there would be a workaround to some of these regulations as the need for “skills in U.S. tech is non-negotiable.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that his government has worked “to restrict H-1B visas” because it believes it is wrong for companies “to bypass American labor just to go for cheaper options in the third world.”
Vance must have been referring to the action of the U.S. President Donald Trump to increase the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 or new applications.
Although these restrictions have led to a slowdown in hiring and the reduction in the number of people in the talent pool, they have also had the intended impact on the companies as they looked at ways they could up-skill their current workforces and create new talent pools at American universities and companies.
Therefore, the actions to charge high costs to H-1B visas were met with criticism on the part of industries and policymakers as well. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the Trump administration over imposing a fee of $100,000 fee on the H-1B worker visas in October.
More recently, the New York Times has reported that the attorneys general of 20 states, such as California and New York, have filed a suit against the Trump administration over increasing the cost of the H-1B visa.
Esterline added, “This administration has taken advantage of valid concerns about the H-1B to justify a broad-brush approach to limiting H-1B access.”
