Donald Trump's announcement on September 19, 2025, that the entry of H-1B visa holders will not be allowed unless their companies pay a fee of USD 100,000 per worker. This sent shock waves across India's tech-services landscape. Currently, the H-1B visa fee ranges between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on the employer's size and other associated costs. More than 70% beneficiaries of these visas are Indians. The next day, the White House issued a clarification stating that the hike in visa fees will not be an annual feature, but a one-time payment that companies will be required to make for new 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 awaiting their new employment will be directly impacted. The high-tech companies most hit by Trump's H-1B bomb are Amazon, TCS, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Google, Deloitte, Infosys, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra Americas. Surprisingly, the Indian-American diaspora remains silent over the development; so also do the tech giants, including Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, and Satya Nadella, who are the beneficiaries of the H-1B visa system.

The Ministry of External Affairs, reacting to 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, the H-1B – a non-immigrant visa that allows American companies to hire foreign workers in speciality occupations, including fashion modelling – has been a pipeline through which Indian engineers, programmers, and consultants have gone on to play a significant role in fueling the US innovation economy. Indian professionals in the US have become founders, investors and leaders of major tech firms. Now that the gateway has been made prohibitively expensive. That pipeline is threatened.

Although the fee hike does not apply to those already holding H-1B visas, companies will evaluate their future options. If sending new hires from India to the US companies costs an extra USD 100,000 per head, they will consider shifting projects to other countries. This will have serious consequences. As it stands, 60% of visa recipients earn less than USD 100,000, which means that their employers will find it harder to justify hiring such specialised workers from abroad. It further implies that the US retains the 'priciest' elite talent, while other countries absorb the rest of the mobile workforce, and India mostly inherits 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 shouted 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 due to student and work visas; students are temporary residents who pay premium fees and contribute more than they receive in benefits.

And yet, unlike in the US, Canada, or Australia, the UK counts them in its net migration figures used for policymaking, making them easy targets and fueling hostility. The acceptance of immigrants in British Society has always been conditional. In the 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 a parallel current. The H-1B visa holders and F-1 students are blamed for taking jobs. The mood among Indian students has darkened: green-card backlogs and tightening post-study work rules leave graduates uneasy, and the discussion of too many STEM students creeping into state debates about tuition and research jobs has also arisen.

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, regardless of their parental and family background.

Foreign student arrivals in the US are at a four-year low, with the number of Indian students entering in August down 45% compared to the same period last year, suggesting troubling times for the higher education system. One of the primary reasons for the decline is the Trump administration's 'America First' immigration policy. In May, the US temporarily paused visa interviews worldwide and increased vetting, especially of applicants' social media profiles. The hold-up caused global backlogs and longer wait times at US embassies, further discouraging international students from pursuing advanced education in the US.

The Indians are unwelcome abroad. They are hated and disliked by the right-wing white supremacists. The surge of hatred for Indian immigrants across the world is unprecedented. 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 being attacked. An analysis of Canadian posts by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue recorded 16,884 hateful terms from May to December 2024, compared to 1,163 in the same period in 2023. Persons of Indian-origin are being targeted and assaulted across the countries. European countries as far apart as Poland and Ireland have seen similar protests and attacks on the persons of Indian origin. There are broader issues at stake which impact the Indian expatriate community.

It is essential to understand why the Indians are unwanted. 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 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 Choudary have functioned with impunity. Choudhary continued the radicalisation lectures across North America despite the banning of his group, Al Mujahiroun. At the Al-Muhsinin Mosque in Bonn, radical preachers 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 California's law of 2023 that sought to protect the marginalised people of Indian-origin from caste discrimination; the Hindus objected to the mention of caste discrimination in school textbooks 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 domestic Hindutva politics infiltrated the US expatriate community. The Hindu sites in the US foisted 'community pride' as an assertion of identity, even as a 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 Indian 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, healthcare, and finance, among others. This trend of migration was observed worldwide, with the World Migration Report 2024 noting that Indians were the largest migrant group in 2022. It was observed in the UK, where Indians typically reside in upper-class neighbourhoods and earn significantly more than other immigrant groups. In Germany and the Netherlands, well-heeled Indians are establishing businesses and creating a huge economic impact.

In short, Indians are suddenly everywhere. According to the MEA report of November 26, 2024, there are 35.4 million people of Indian origin residing abroad. Every year, approximately 2.5 million Indians emigrate overseas, making India the country with the highest annual number of emigrants globally.

What is apparent is the marked shift from the era where Indians 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's too frequent visits abroad and addresses to 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 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, remains more loyal to the country of their origin, from which they came, rather than to the country that has adopted and shaped them into what they are. The Indian immigrants who take away the jobs of locals do not assimilate and integrate into 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 adoption is another. This attitude of the Indians alienates them from the local native people. The imposition of the massive hike in H-1B visa fees and Trump's MAGA project should be understood in this context.

Well, the experts and analysts are jumping to the conclusion that what Trump did is a blessing in disguise; the reverse migration will see talented technocrats working for the nation's development. 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, as well as greater opportunities for jobs and innovation, at a time when the lack of quality education and unprecedented unemployment make the situation very gloomy and depressing.

More importantly, the young and talented should stop looking desperately for greener pastures abroad. Those who migrate abroad are generally not grounded in reality; they are emotionally unattached and disconnected from their own country. There are many job opportunities in various fields, other than the technical field, where their talent and creativity can be utilised to find satisfying and fulfilling jobs, as well as a sense of meaning and purpose in 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 civilisational history and follow this on the ground in Parliament, institutions and in schools and colleges."