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In the video, Harold Weinbrecht, the mayor of Cary, and TJ Cully, the mayor of Morrisville, are seen grooving to the iconic song 'Chunri-Chunri' alongside other performers at an event. Diwali 2025 In America: Diwali, a festival that marks the victory of good over evil and is one of the major festivals in India, illuminates the US cities as the Indian community abroad celebrates the occasion. The festive spirit can also be seen in many countries around the world, with North Carolina, USA, being a glittering example. Two mayors in North Carolina danced their hearts out to the tunes of...

Companies could face probes into their compliance with the H-1B visa program as part of the Trump Administration’s effort to clamp down on the program and force companies to hire more Americans. The Department of Labor announced on Friday that it was launching Project Firewall, an “enforcement initiative” that will investigate employers for potential abuse of the H-1B visa process. The initiative may be the first time the federal government has sought to broadly enforce H-1B legal standards intended to protect both the H-1B employee and American workers, such as paying wages on par with other workers of similar qualifications...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American colleague Donald Trump discussed in a telephone conversation on Thursday the possible supply of US Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said. During the call, Putin told Trump that Tomahawk missiles would not change the situation on the battlefield, but would harm relations between Moscow and Washington and minimize the chances of a positive settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, according to Ushakov. Furthermore, the official revealed that Trump pledged to take into consideration all of Putin's concerns during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday at the White...

A growing push in the US to curtail OPT and tax or restrict foreign student work is rattling Indian students. Policy shifts, surprise site visits and H-1B fee changes are shrinking the post-study path in the US. When students finish degrees in the US, they often rely on Optional Practical Training (OPT) to transition from F1 student visas to H1-B work visas and build a career in the US. That safety net is now increasingly under threat. Senator Tom Cotton’s OPT Fair Tax Act was already spelling trouble. Now, Senator Chuck Grassley and others are urging DHS (Department of Homeland...

Immigration-focused narratives, especially those related to H-1B visas and portraying Indians as “job stealers” dominated online discourse on X, amplifying xenophobia and fueling calls for deportation and denaturalization, according to a new report. The report, Anti-Indian Racism on X: Causes, Trends, and Narratives, released by The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) today documents a surge in anti-Indian racism on the American microblogging platform between July and September 2025. The 680 high-engagement posts analyzed for this report amassed more than 281 million views, underscoring the scale of online racism targeting Indian communities, according to CSOH. Notably, August saw...

A highly anticipated city council meeting Thursday could start the process of potentially removing a member of the council. Palm Bay Community Correspondent James Sparvero reported Tuesday that Councilman Chandler Langevin is back on the hot seat over what he said on social media about Indian visa holders and immigrants. Langevin said these Indians don’t care about America, are destroying the South, and should all be deported. -snip- “If someone only hires Indians, sends remittance checks back to India, campaigns in Indian elections, lobby’s (sic) to fly Indian flags over American government buildings, and has no family willing to serve...

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would sharply reduce the number of H-1B migrants working in U.S. white-collar jobs. The bill, to be announced Tuesday morning, would begin to count visa renewals as new visas, so ending the current practice of allowing unlimited renewals for most of the 85,000 visas granted to companies each year. The unlimited renewals policy allows roughly 750,000 H-1B visa holders to retain white-collar, career-track jobs that would otherwise have gone to young U.S. graduates. Without the exemption, the number of company-employed H-1B visa holders would drop to roughly 250,000. The...

Columbia University could face a substantial financial impact if the Trump administration’s proposed $100,000 fee on H-1B visas is implemented, as reported by the Columbia Spectator. The fee, announced in a White House proclamation on September 19, 2025, could cost the University up to $20 million annually, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). While current H-1B visa holders and renewals are not affected, new visa petitions filed after September 21 would be subject to the levy, placing additional strain on universities that rely heavily on international talent for research and teaching. New H-1B hires could...

“I have never seen anything like this in 30 years,” says Mrinalini Batra, a higher studies counsellor who has helped dozens of Indian students find their way into America’s most prestigious universities. Batra is referring to a slew of measures enacted by the US President Donald Trump administration in recent months, from time-limiting foreign student visas and hiking H1B visa fees to demanding a 15% cap on international students at US universities. Taken together, the measures seem to mark a concerted effort to restrict the number of foreign students entering America. -snip- “The US is just not an option for...

The notification pinged on smartphones across America on Friday, September 19, night. US President Donald Trump had signed a proclamation that would add a staggering $100,000 fee to H1B visa applications, sending shockwaves through the Indian Diaspora that forms the backbone of America's tech industry. For Priya and her husband Rajesh (names changed on request), the news arrived like a digital earthquake in their quiet suburban home. She, on an H4 dependent visa, watched helplessly as her husband -- an H1B holder with three years remaining on his current visa -- absorbed the implications of what seemed like a career-ending...

The number of Indians securing US student visas has witnessed a dramatic plunge, diving by over 44 per cent in August 2025, according to data released on Monday. This marks the steepest drop among all countries and signals a major shift in global student mobility trends, with China now surpassing India as the leading source of US student visas. The International Trade Commission reported that the US issued a total of 313,138 student visas in August — a critical month for university admissions — which reflects a 19.1 per cent decline compared to the previous year. India, which was the...

Chipmaker Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang said that the company will continue to sponsor H-1B visas and cover all associated costs following U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order last month that imposed a $100,000 fee on each new application, Business Insider reported on Tuesday. Huang's reported message, aimed at reassuring employees, comes after panic and confusion had ensued among tech workers on H-1B visas, a large chunk of whom are from India and China. Akin to the wider chip and tech industry, Nvidia has a significant number of employees from overseas. Huang has repeatedly asserted that about half the AI researchers...

Manisha Puppala, an Indian national who recently graduated with a master’s degree in tech management from the Rochester Institute of Technology, planned to apply for an H-1B work visa to remain in the U.S. after her studies. Now that the Trump administration has announced a $100,000 fee for new H-1B applications, her future is in doubt. Puppala, who took on $120,000 in loans to study in America and has been working at a Boston firm on a permit that allows foreign students to work temporarily in the U.S., had dreamed of running her own startup. “What do I do now?”...

The Trump administration plans to publish a new H-1B rule expected to propose additional immigration restrictions on how employers use the visa and who qualifies for it. Shortly before the White House announced a $100,000 fee on many H-1B visa holders, the Department of Homeland Security published its regulatory agenda. The agenda includes a rule to change the H-1B visa category. The summary for the upcoming rule “Reforming the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Classification Program” states: “DHS will propose to reform the H-1B program by revising eligibility for cap exemptions, providing greater scrutiny for employers that have violated program requirements, and...

When Qian Zhang boarded a flight from Shanghai to Boston at age 18, she thought she was heading toward the "best version" of her life. It was 2009, during President Barack Obama's first term, when the U.S. economy was rebounding and opportunities for well-educated workers seemed plentiful. She was bound for Dartmouth College, a top choice for many Chinese students, and later found her way to Harvard Business School. Qian embraced the American dream: the promise of equal opportunity, a country that rewards talent and hard work, and a place where global citizens like her could belong. By her early...

For decades, young Indians were told that success meant heading west. Wealth, global recognition, and a career on the international stage could only be earned by leaving home for the United States. Silicon Valley became the promised land, Wall Street the pinnacle of ambition, and the H1-B visa the golden ticket. Families built dreams around it, students tailored their education for it, and India’s brightest minds set their sights on crossing oceans. But now, that dream faces a harsh reality. President Donald Trump has imposed a staggering $100,000 fee on new H1-B visas, a barrier so steep it threatens to...

There’s been lots of discussion about which tech companies will be the biggest losers from President Donald Trump’s broad assault on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, including a $100,000 fee for each new visa recipient. But the impact could be felt first by universities, says Jeremy Neufeld, the director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. That's because the fee won’t apply to companies until next March, when the annual lottery for the roughly 85,000 new commercial H-1B visas awarded each year, takes place. Meanwhile, universities and certain other research and not-for-profit...

Tighter US immigration rules are making Indian families think twice before arranging marriages with relatives living in the United States, matchmakers and experts say. Sidhi Sharma, a 19-year-old medical student from Haryana, had hoped to marry an Indian citizen with a high-paying US job but abandoned the idea after recent headlines about President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Kaushik Raj, a 27-year-old journalist from Delhi, was all ready to live his American dream with a $100,000 (approximately Rs 89 lakh) scholarship in hand to pursue a master's degree in data journalism at Columbia University. But all his plans came crashing down when the United States' immigration department denied his student visa. Raj, who completed all the visa formalities, including the interview, believes the rejection was linked to his social media activity. Under the Donald Trump administration, social media vetting has become an integral part of the visa selection process. Speaking to The Washington Post, Raj claimed he wasn't...

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Cognizant and eight other major corporations have been questioned by U.S. Senators for filing thousands of H-1B skilled labour visa petitions after conducting "mass layoffs" of American employees. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and ranking member Richard Durbin have also questioned Amazon, Apple, Deloitte, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Meta, Microsoft, and Walmart, asking them for details on their hiring and recruitment practices as well as any variation in salary and benefits between H-1B visa holders and American employees. The Senators said their "inquiry" comes at a time when the unemployment rate in America’s tech sector is...