For Indian diaspora, Trump’s H-1B visa shocker sparks uncertainty, fears: ‘95% of the people…’

Hindustan Times ^ | 9/23/2025 | Shashank Mattoo

[marcusmaximus]

“This is devastating. I can’t express it in words,” said one Indian technology professional in Silicon Valley to HT as news of US President Donald Trump’s H1-B visa fee hike spread on Saturday.

“I’ve invested a lot of time here in America. I’m staying positive right now but there are times when it’s hard,” adds another Indian professional on an Optional Practical Training (OPT) visa, who was hoping to secure an H1B sponsorship and stay on in America after completing a master’s degree. A pervasive mood of fear and uncertainty looms large among many in the Indian diaspora, particularly young professionals working for technology firms.

-snip-

For decades, Indian students arriving in the United States on F1 student visas were able to find jobs with companies that were willing to sponsor them for H1-B visas and subsequently, for employment based green cards.

This pathway became the basis of the Indian-American dream and allowed many in India’s 5-million strong diaspora to set down roots in America.

After Trump’s H1B visa decision, many in the diaspora believe that pathway is fundamentally broken.

“The education pathway of coming to America and subsequently staying in the United States will collapse because these visa moves make it so much harder for entry level workers to find a job,” says Debarghya Das, a partner at Menlo Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.

“For an Indian master’s student, it is not a wise decision to come to America right now,” says another Indian professional on an H1B visa, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

---

TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: deadbeatusmaximus; dersturmermaximus; freepathonq4; freeploader; freeploadusmaximus; gayforindia; h1b; hireamerican; india; marcusjugdish; marcusmattoo; marcuspajeet; newtrollformarcus; pajeetmaximus; peacebyeaster; remaininindia; sendincash; sendincashforq4; sendthemback; shashankmattoo; takeoutthetrash; takeouttrolltrash; trollusmaximus; whatpokrovskdoink; whatukrainedoink; xenophobemaximus; xenophobia; xenophobusmaximus

[grey_whiskers]

Sod off troll.

The US built nukes in the 1940s without dots.

India is still a hellhole today, and is trying to take over the US now that it has ruined its own country.

[grey_whiskers]

Sod off, Euro weenie.
You’ve even started using liberal code words like “ray-ciss.”

[grey_whiskers]

Average IQ in India is 84.

We don’t need them.

[grey_whiskers]

Boom, headshot!
Rhetorically speaking.

[rollo tomasi]

We don't need an H-1B visa system, immigration should be an organic process. Operation Paperclip was a onetime "thing" (Along with importation of German Marxists in the late 1930s which crippled our culture).

We have plenty of resources internally. "Bright foreign minds" should make their own country great. Why do they want to come here and why do corps have to forgo using internal resources? Its an easy answer but you got browbeating and shilling blinds you. Also, Trump is a non-sequitur, there is another election in 2028 that could flip the ideological direction with the Excutive Branch.

[nathanbedford]

India… is trying to take over the US…

How long have you been given over to paranoia and conspiracy obsessions?

[nathanbedford]

Average IQ in India is 84.

We don’t need them.

Send them all back.

And you accuse me of playing the “ray-ciss” Card? Look who is dealing from below the deck.

[nathanbedford]

The US built nukes in the 1940s without dots.

Actually, the US built nukes in the 1940s with the help of Jews. And we built a space program with the help of Nazis. Now we are building the AI structure to save the nation from another existential threat with the help of Indians, among others. Thank God.

It is this "thin gruel," only a few of whose names are listed in #9, that has helped transform the world with their 84 IQs.

[grey_whiskers]

Actually, the US built nukes in the 1940s with the help of Jews.

And Jews are not dots? Hence your remark is a waste of time.

AI is an existential threat: of wasting all our money.

The top AI companies have spent > $400 billion on infrastructure in the last 18 months and have only got $40 billion in revenue back. This is not sustainable.

It is this "thin gruel," only a few of whose names are listed in #9, that has helped transform the world with their 84 IQs.

Yes, they've taken over Silicon Valley and produced ubiquitous spy software. That's not progress.

Sounds like a dot-not-feather took over your account.

[bert]

——Hadji.——

???

Most of the Indians in question are Braiman upper cast and at the root, Hindu

[nathanbedford]

Send them all back.

The irony of all this is you call me a troll as you wallow smug in the misplaced conviction that you are the true disciple of Donald Trump. In your arrogance you believe that the more shrill you trash-talk whom you believe to be apostate, the more you are piling up credits in MAGA heaven.

The irony is, as you can read in this thread, that I explicitly support the position of H1B visas advanced by Donald Trump that you explicitly oppose. Trump wants to admit some Indians according to his new visa plan, as do I. Since I am a "ray-ciss" card player for the same beliefs, I guess that makes Donald Trump a racist demagogue too.

Let go your obsessions and let go your sycophantic support of what you mistakenly believe is Donald Trump's position, and you might find the world is inhabited by fewer race baiters and trolls.

[grey_whiskers]

I’m not a disciple of Donald Trump.

Nor do I think there is a Maga-Heaven, let alone that one piles up credits in it.

There are too many Indians here.

They have been admitted under false pretenses.

I have read in the last few months of UC Berkeley Computer Science professors, complaining that some of their computer science graduates with 4.0 GPAs, can’t even get *interviews*.

And they have a habit of preferentially hiring other Indians over anyone else—witness the new CEO of FedEx stacking the C-suite with other dots. In the last *week*.

Not to mention all the companies laying off thousands while putting in requests for thousands of H1-Bs.

Or Elon Musk’s infamous “F your OWN FACE” “I will go to war with you on a scale you cannot possibly imagine” as he applied for H1-Bs (reduced salary) for quite pedestrian mid-tier engineering jobs.

He’s the richest person who ever walked the face of the planet, yet he insists on some non-existent “right” to import cheap foreigners over US citizens?

And your straw man goes up in flames.

[nathanbedford]

If, after all these years you had taken the time, before indulging in seriatim insults directed to me personally, to read what I wrote, you would have learned that I agree with virtually everything you said in your last reply.

I agree H1B visas have been criminally abused. My solution is the same as Donald Trump's, reform the system, retain those who have real contributions to make, bar those whose jobs can be done by Americans, end the exploitation of mid and lower level Indians.

Donald Trump believes $100,000 will do the trick. The solution, as I wrote, seems reasonable to me because it tends toward correcting the abuses in the next above paragraph while retaining the benefits of the system where it counts.

[grey_whiskers]

I disagree, in that I think the system should be abolished in toto.

See my prior post to you for some of the reasons why.

If it is kept, the surcharge should be $100k/applicant/year.
(I’ve been writing on offshoring and such on FR for 20 years.)

[nathanbedford]

Let's leave it there.