Now US president Trump gave a big setback to Indian technical professionals and technocrats as on H-1B visas as his government has considerably increased the fees by ten times from the current rate and it is no less than an attack which will in fact discourage Indian technocrats who want to serve in US companies. This hard decision of Trump will also affect the relations between US and India.
The US department of labour has launched ‘’Project Firewall ‘’on Friday, an initiative that will target H-1B visas. The move aligns with President Donald Trump’s ‘’America First ‘agenda in the job market and comes on the same day he signed an executive order requiring payment of dollar 100,000 with every H-1B petition. According to officials,’’ Project Firewall’’ will safeguard wages and job opportunities for American workers while punishing people who misuse the H-1B program.
Project Firewall is a department of labour initiative aimed at ensuring US employers do not exploit the H-1B visa program. It seeks to protect American workers by scrutinising companies that hire foreign employees, especially in high skill sectors like technology. For, tech companies and industries that relay on H-1B workers. Project Firewall could mean tougher scrutiny, higher costs, and stricter compliance requirements. For American workers, it is being sold as a safeguard against job displacement. Project Firewall ,paired with Trump’s new dollar 100000 annual H-1B fee could reshape the tec industry by making it costlier for US firms to hire foreign talent –particularly Indians ,who account for nearly three -quarters of all H-1B recipients.
As a consequence of Trump’s visa attack, lives and careers of more than a million Indian’s were thrown into turmoil over week end after US president Donald Trump issued an executive order instituting an annual dollar 100000 fee for H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers.H-1B professionals in America travelling to India for work or vacation returned from airports, and those in India rushed back to US to beat the September 21 date when the new rules kick in, even as immigration attorneys geared up for legal challenges when courts open Monday. The White House chose to bring down the hammer on H-1B’s after business hours on Friday evening, ostensibly to forestall immediate challenges. There are an estimated 7,30,000 H-1B visa holders currently in US, more than 70% of them are from India, with almost 500000 dependents H-4 visas which allows the spouse and unmarried children below the age of 21 years of a principal H-1B worker.
Flanked by his commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trump signed executive order on new H-1B rules and launched dollar one million ‘’Gold Visa’’ from the White House Oval office, saying ‘’we are going to have great people coming in and they are going to be paying –we are going to take that money and we are not going to reducing taxes and we are going to be deducing debt. Providing rationale for the tectonic rule change. Lutnick said the dollar 100000 fee is intended to discourage companies from using the H-1B Program to hire entry -level foreign workers at lower wages –a vocal MNGA charge –thereby protecting American jobs and incentivising the hiring of domestic talent. The new fee, Lutnick said, would ‘’stop the nonsense of letting people just come into this country on visas that were given away for fee.’’ Companies will have to ‘’decide if person is valuable enough to have a dollar 100000 -a -year payment to the government, or they should head home, and they should go hire an American,’ ’he said.
The top ten companies that filed for H-1B approvals in 2024 include mix of Indian and American companies with operations in both countries—Amazon, Microsoft, Meta [Facebook], and Apple from US, and Infosys, Cognizant, TCS, and Wipro from India. Immigration attorneys geared up over weekend to contest the executive notification, arguing among other things that imposing new rules and fee is the domain of the US Congress and the matter has to be legislated. Democratic lawmaker Raja Krishanmoorti of lllinois called it a ‘’reckless attempt to cut America off from high-skilled workers who have long strengthened our workforce ,fuelled innovation ,and helped build industries that employ millions of Americans .’’Indian government on Saturday expressed serious concern over US President Donald Trump’s move to raise the H-1B visa fee to dollar 100000 annually ,calling it a political disruption for skilled Indian professionals and their families in the United States.
In an official statement, the spokesperson said their full implications are being studied, noting that Indian industry has already put out an initial analysis clarifying some perceptions related to the H-1B Program. ’’Industry in both India and US has a stake in innovation and creativity and can be expected to consult on the best path forward, ’’the statement said.It highlighted that talent mobility has contributed enormously to technology development, innovation, economic growth, competitiveness, and wealth creation in both countries.’’ Policymakers will therefore assess recent steps taking into account mutual benefits, which include strong people-to-people ties between the two countries,’’ spokesperson added. The government also drew attention to the humanitarian consequences of the proposed restrictions, particularly the disruption caused to families. ’’We hope these disruptions can be addressed suitably by the US authorities, ’’the statement said.PM Narendra Modi has reacted to the Trump’s fees raising of the H-1B visas to ten times to dollar 100000 annually and said that the biggest enemy of India is our dependence on others and we should make India self -dependent so that it will not depend on other countries.
For this Modi exhorted Indian traders as well as the citizens to buy Swadeshi goods and services and he gave stress on vocal for local and make in India and buy from Indian traders so that our scarce money does not go outside but it earned and used in India and this in fact will be a befitting reply to Trump .America is the biggest democracy of the globe, but it is unfortunate the Trump through his executive order is making and furthering discrimination with outsider workers including Indian technocrats working in US firms and companies and this sheer discrimination with the Indian professionals and with other foreign workers is perversion of democracy and it is hoped that Trump will review his decision to rise fee on H-1B visas and this will be in the best interests of both countries. Modi made a strong pitch for Atamnirbarta that is self -dependence and called for indigenous production of everything from semiconductor chips to ships. Modi said all the problems of India have one solution and that is self -reliance and all of us government, scientists, industrialists, thinkers et al should focus on achieving self-reliance and then and only then our problems will be solved. He rightly said that dependence on other nations should be defeated if we have to attain development by 2047.In brief Trumps H-1B visa attack should be neutralised with the resolve of fighting dependence on other nations and we have to achieve self-reliance and defeat dependence on other nations and then only US and other developed nations cannot browbeat India.
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