An Indian information technology professional on an H-1B visa in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was recently heading home from work when he was confronted by a man who blocked his path and demanded, “What are you doing, and where are you from?”
The professional, who works for an IT firm owned by an Indian American, initially pushed back. “It’s none of your business who I am or where I’m from,” he replied.
“It is my business,” the man shot back. “I want to know who is here in my country and what they are doing.”
The encounter left the IT worker shaken. Later that evening, he called his employer and said he wanted to return to India.
Both the employee and the company requested anonymity due to heightened sensitivities around the H-1B program since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.
The tech professional’s experience is not an outlier. It reflects a broader shift in public sentiment unfolding across the country, especially among right-wing online groups in recent months.
Backlash against Indians on H-1B visas — and against Indian Americans more generally — has risen sharply since September, when President Donald Trump announced a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions, alleging widespread misuse of the program. Social media has since been flooded with claims that Indians are “job stealers” and calls to shut down the visa altogether.
And it is not only anonymous users driving the hostility. In fact, the rhetoric is now translating into policy.
Late last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis moved to end the use of H-1B visas at public universities, issuing a chilling message: “Universities across the country are importing foreign workers on H-1B visas instead of hiring Americans who are qualified and available to do the job. We will not tolerate H-1B abuse in Florida institutions.”
For those navigating the U.S. immigration system, it was immediately clear that the move would not only directly affect many Indians among the more than 400 foreign workers employed across Florida’s state universities but also fuel nationwide rhetoric against immigrants, including those who are lawfully present in the country.
fwd.us, an advocacy group that supports the H-1B program and engages in grassroots mobilization and lobbying, estimates that there are roughly 730,000 H-1B visa holders currently living in the United States, along with an additional 550,000 dependents — spouses and children — bringing the total to nearly 1.3 million residents. More than 70 percent of all H-1B recipients are Indian nationals.
U.S. employers hire H-1B workers across a wide range of industries, but the majority of visas — 65 percent in 2023 — were issued for “computer-related” occupations such as computer scientists, software engineers, and systems analysts. Nearly half of all H-1B-sponsoring employers (48 percent in 2023) fall within the “professional, scientific, and technical services” sector, according to USCIS data.
Given the large footprint of H-1B holders in the U.S. economy, the visa program — which has long had its critics, both inside Congress and beyond — has increasingly become a political flashpoint.
But what’s different today is that some of the officials closest to the president have become its most vocal opponents—including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Their views are now amplified by a growing chorus of right-wing voices on social media.
Over the past several months, what began as the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration appears to have triggered a broader ripple effect, one that is reshaping, and in some cases straining, the pluralistic fabric of American society.
For longtime New Jersey resident Amar Gupta, the cracks in the inclusive character of American society may already be showing.
“This Diwali, we got multiple incidents across the country of white neighbors calling the police on their Indian neighbors celebrating with fireworks,” he says. “What was until a few years ago an interesting Indian fall festival — for many Americans who enjoyed the firework spectacle — suddenly became something to be controlled.”
Diwali greetings on social media from FBI Director Kash Patel and Ohio gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy drew intense backlash. Even a post by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was not spared, facing criticism from right-wing social media users.
Gupta is among a growing number of Indians who say they are feeling heightened racism both professionally and socially. Many Indians living and working in the U.S. admit that the constant reinforcement of immigration controls and the imposition of stricter visa regulations in recent times have shifted scrutiny onto law-abiding, tax-paying immigrants who are contributing to the American economy.
The rise and growing influence of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement during his second term has stunned many immigrant groups. Political rhetoric has hardened, and civic tensions have escalated sharply. Yet few expected the Indian American community—long celebrated as the nation’s “model minority”—to find itself grappling with a rapidly shifting public image.
Today, six Indian Americans serve in the U.S. Congress. Just a generation ago, there was none. Some of the country’s most iconic companies, including Google, Microsoft, and IBM, are led by Indian American CEOs.
But this newfound visibility may also be making the community a target for immigration hardliners. In many ways, Indian Americans are becoming victims of their own success — admired for their accomplishments yet increasingly resented in an environment of economic anxiety and political polarization.
Sanjeev Joshipura, executive director of Indiaspora, one of the most prominent Indian American organizations, said the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment — including toward the Indian diaspora — has been growing “in a latent but combustible manner over time, as it has been in other countries, because of the divergence in the economic well-being and prospects between the affluent and those less so.”
And while those long-running pressures set the stage, recent developments have poured fuel on the fire.
Joshipura added that “issues such as tariffs, visas and immigration, and vicious rhetoric by highly visible people might indeed be the proximate causes of the anti-India vitriol we are witnessing online, and sometimes on television, and worse, occasionally in real life.”
These broader sentiments are now being reflected in how Indian celebrations and traditions such as Diwali are perceived in the U.S.
At the same time, some argue that a growing tendency among some Indians to overassert their cultural identity in public — at times in ways that inconvenience others — may also be exacerbating the problem.
That scrutiny has intensified further as a series of high-profile legal cases involving Indian nationals or Indian Americans have drawn public attention.
In recent months, several cases involving members of the community have made headlines for the wrong reasons. In September, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a stern warning following the case of Ram Bhai Patel, an Indian national who conspired to stage armed robberies as part of a visa fraud scheme. USCIS stated: “Immigration fraud is not a victimless crime. It robs our nation’s lawful immigration system of valuable benefits intended for those who deserve and earn them.”
Last month, global investment firm BlackRock fell victim to a massive financial scam—more than $500 million in loan fraud allegedly orchestrated by Indian-origin executive Bankim Brahmbhatt.
These incidents have unfolded alongside international policy shifts that are reshaping how Indian immigrants are viewed.
In another unprecedented development this week, news emerged that Canada is tightening controls on Indian students. The country has reduced the number of international student permits as part of a broader effort to curb temporary migration and crack down on student visa–related fraud.
Against this backdrop, some community voices are urging introspection.
Sugar Land, Texas–based community researcher Dan Mayur reflects on the shifting perception of Indian identity in the U.S. by first looking inward. “Variant personal traits are evident in any large group of people as a bell-shaped normal distribution,” he says. “But sadly, we do see a number of fraudsters emerging from the NRI community of late—this has been reported across spectrums: accounting, Medicare, IT, academia. Such frauds frequently make headlines in local newspapers, making the readers wary.”
Why, then, do such cases surface, especially when Indians are statistically one of the highest-earning and best-educated minority groups in the United States? Mayur, author of Global Nomads, offers a perspective: “It may be deep-rooted in the British-era scarcity culture of India—a mindset of ‘let me grab as much as I can while I have the opportunity.’ But that said, the majority of NRIs are hardworking, honest people.”
The past few months have also seen a noticeable rise in cases of Indians finding themselves on the wrong side of civic and social norms in the United States.
Rajat Gupta, who runs the Instagram handle ouramericandream.vlogs, with nearly 60,000 followers, frequently highlights such incidents. His channel showcases examples of Indians clashing with civic expectations — from shoplifting to public disturbances, including littering inside theaters — while offering candid commentary on what drives this behavior. When asked about criticism from the community for exposing these issues, he says, “Most of my followers support me and see it as spreading awareness, some comment that they have been wanting to highlight these issues but fear backlash.”
He notes that many in the community recognize the internal fault lines and believe that without acknowledging them openly, they cannot be addressed or resolved.
Mayur echoes similar concerns.
He agrees that, in some cases, Indians may be going overboard. “Most Indians are proud of their culture and want to preserve it,” he says. “While there is no harm in it, this can be done without creating a public inconvenience.”
He notes that the very idea of celebration differs between the two societies, pointing to recent incidents where religious processions and large communal gatherings have come under scrutiny. “Unfortunately, many Indians tend to be self-centered and unabashedly do their thing without regard for others,” he adds. “It’s time for a wake-up call, maybe.”
Indiaspora Executive Director Joshipura says that at a time like this, it is critically important for members of the community to “participate actively in local and national civic and philanthropic sectors of society” and demonstrate “that we are a national asset to America, thereby combating the perception and false narrative that we detract from American life.”
He pointed out that Indiaspora has been “increasingly doing” that in the recent past.