As the U.S. government announced a steep $100,000 fee hike on H-1B visa petitions, techies across America were frantically refreshing their screens, calculating the impact on their careers and future. Thousands of miles away, in homes across India, their families were panicking in, uncertain about travel plans, financial commitments, and the future of their loved ones in the U.S.
For many, the announcement turned an already high-stakes application process into an all-consuming storm of anxiety, keeping phones, laptops, and WhatsApp threads alive around the clock.
Shubra Singh, living in the U.S., found her Saturday night dinner in a Pittsburgh bar overshadowed by the news. Surrounded by eight Indian friends who are all tech professionals on H-1B visas got glued to this H1-B visa update. She watched as their attention shifted entirely to their phones, anxiously tracking every update on President Donald Trump’s latest decision to hike H-1B visa fees. The casual evening quickly turned tense, with conversations drowned out by notifications and urgent searches for clarity.
Singh, an Indian biotech professional on work travel in the U.S., said their families were frantically sharing “all kinds of articles on the H-1B situation,” noting that the “anxiety was apparent,” as quoted by CNBC.
Indians make up the largest share of H-1B visa holders in the U.S., accounting for around 71%, while Chinese nationals represent about 11.7%. The recent Trump proclamation to raise H-1B fees to $100,000 has thrown their employment prospects into uncertainty, leaving many to rethink their plans and future in the U.S.
In India, shares of major IT firms slipped on Monday following the U.S. announcement of higher fees for work visas, sparking concerns over the hiring of new employees abroad.
Investors responded to the announcement by offloading shares of India’s top IT outsourcing giants, including Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Tata Consultancy Services. Smaller and mid-sized firms also felt the impact, with Persistent Systems, Coforge, Mphasis, Firstsource Solutions, and Cyient seeing their stock prices dip between 1.7% and 4.2% by 6:30 a.m. in London trading.
JPMorgan’s Toshi Jain predicts that the steep $100,000 H-1B fee could deter Indian students from pursuing opportunities in the U.S., effectively acting as a new “tax” on securing employment after graduation. Prashanth Prakash, partner at Indian venture capital firm Accel, echoed this concern, noting that it will become increasingly challenging for Indian students aiming to study and work in the U.S.
Meanwhile, panic rippled through an India-bound Emirates flight after President Trump announced the $100,000 H-1B visa fee on Friday. At San Francisco International Airport, a number of Indian passengers reportedly disembarked just before take-off, causing the flight to be delayed by three hours.
A passenger on the Emirates flight posted videos on social media showing travelers disembarking amid fears of being unable to return to the U.S. In one clip, passengers were seen standing in the aisles, while others anxiously scrolled through their phones, uncertain about if or when the flight would take off. In another video, the captain is heard telling passengers that they could leave the plane if they wanted, referring to the latest “unprecedented” circumstances.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the captain speaking. Due to the current circumstances, obviously, that are unprecedented for us here at Emirates, we are aware that a number of passengers do not wish to travel with us, and that’s perfectly fine. All we ask is that if you wish to offload yourself, you do so,” the captain said.
READ: Immigration attorneys prepare lawsuits against Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee (
Posting the video on Instagram, the user described the scene as chaotic, with panic spreading among the Indian passengers. “It was complete chaos for Emirates passengers at San Francisco Airport this Friday morning. President Trump signed an order affecting both new and existing H-1B visa holders, creating panic among many-particularly Indian passengers-who even chose to leave the aircraft,” the user wrote.
They said they had been stranded in the same spot for more than three hours, “waiting for the flight to depart.”
In explaining the H-1B visa fee increase, President Trump stated that the program was meant to bring “temporary workers into the U.S. to perform additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”