‘Cruel joke’: Trump’s tariff hike has dashed Indians’ dreams of getting US visas

The American dreams of young Indian professionals lie in tatters after US President Donald Trump’s administration upended the H-1B visa program that tech firms have used for more than three decades to bring skilled workers to the US, Al Jazeera writes.

Trump’s decision to increase the fee for the visas from about $2,000, in many cases, to $100,000 has imposed dramatic new costs on companies that sponsor these applications. The base salary an H-1B visa employee is supposed to be paid is $60,000. But the employer’s cost now rises to $160,000 at the minimum, and in many cases, companies will likely find American workers with similar skills for lower pay.

For years, Indian IT companies themselves sponsored the most H-1B visas of all firms, using them to bring Indian employees to the US and then contractually outsourcing their expertise to other businesses, too. This changed: In 2014, seven out of the 10 companies that received the most H-1B visas were Indian or started in India; In 2024, that number dropped to four.

Despite this, the vast majority of visas so far, more than 70 percent, have been granted to Indian professionals. Now, thousands of young people in India are concerned that this route to the US could be closed.