Ashish Chauhan dreams of pursuing an MBA at a US university next year, a goal he describes as “engraved in his brain”.

The 29-year-old finance professional from India (whose name has been changed by request) hopes to eventually work in the United States, but he said he now feels conflicted about the American work environment. Immigration line It was sparked by support for President-elect Donald Trump’s disapproval of the long-term U.S. visa program.

The H-1B visa program, which brings skilled foreign workers to the United States, has been criticized for undermining American workers but praised for attracting global talent. The president-elect, once a critic, now supports the 34-year-old program, while tech billionaire Elon Musk defends it as key to securing top engineering talent.

Indian citizens like Mr. Chouhan dominate the program, receiving 72% of H-1B visas, followed by Chinese nationals at 12%. By 2023, the majority of H-1B visa holders will work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, with 65% in computer-related jobs. Their median annual salary is $118,000 (£94,000).

Concerns about H-1B visas are tied to the broader immigration debate.

one Pew Research Center Report Data show that immigrants to the United States will increase by 1.6 million in 2023, the largest increase in more than 20 years. Immigrants currently account for more than 14% of the population, the highest level since 1910. Indians are the second largest immigrant group in the United States, after Mexicans. Many Americans worry that a surge in immigration could hurt job prospects or hinder assimilation.

The latest data shows that India has also surpassed China as the main source of international students, with the number of Indian students in the United States reaching a record 331,602 from 2023 to 2024. open doors report About international educational exchanges. Most people rely on loans and any visa freeze could devastate household finances.

“My concern is that this (H-1B visa backlash) may also spark hostility towards Indians living there. But I can’t give up on my ambitions and put my life on hold and wait for the volatility to subside, because that’s what it is over the years,” Mr. Chauhan said.

Efforts to limit the H-1B program peaked during Trump’s first term, when he signed a 2017 order to tighten application review and fraud detection. In 2018, the rejection rate soared to 24%, compared with 5-8% under President Barack Obama and 2-4% under President Joe Biden. The total number of H-1B applicants approved under Biden is similar to that during Trump’s first term.

“The first Trump administration tightened H-1B visas, increasing denial rates and slowing processing times, making it more difficult for people to obtain visas in a timely manner. It’s unclear whether this will happen in the second Trump administration It’s happening again in the Trump administration,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr. An immigration scholar at Cornell Law School told the BBC.

“Some like Elon Musk want to preserve H-1B visas, while other officials in the new administration want to restrict all immigration, including H-1B. It’s too early to tell which side will prevail. “

Indians have a long history with the H-1B visa. According to the authors of “The Other One Percent,” a study of American Indians, the plan is also responsible for “the emergence of Indian Americans as the most educated and highest-income group in the United States, whether immigrants or natives.” reason.

American researchers Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh point out that new Indian immigrants are Speak different languages ​​and live in different areas. The number of people speaking Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu grew, and the Indian-American community moved from New York and Michigan to larger enclaves in California and New Jersey. The skilled visa program helped create a “new map of Indian Americans.”

Mr. Chauhan said the biggest draw of the H-1B visa is the chance to earn a much higher salary. The US offers higher wages, and for those who are the first in their family to gain a professional qualification, making that much money can be life-changing. “The fascination with H-1B is directly related to the wage gap between India and the United States for the same engineering positions,” he said.

But not everyone is happy with the plan. For many people, the H-1B program is the ideal path to permanent residency or a U.S. green card. While the H-1B itself is a temporary work visa, it allows visa holders to live and work in the United States for up to six years. During this period, many H-1B holders applied for green cards through the employment-based immigration category, often sponsored by their employer. This takes time.

More than a million Indians, including their dependents, are currently waiting for the employment-based green card category. “Getting a green card means waiting endlessly for 20 to 30 years,” said Atal Agarwal, who runs a company in India that uses artificial intelligence to help find education and jobs around the world. Visa options.

Mr. Agarwal moved to the United States after graduating in 2017 and worked for a software company for several years. He said getting an H-1B visa was fairly simple, but then he seemed to “hit a dead end.” He returned to India.

“It’s a fluid situation. Your employer has to sponsor you, and because of the long path to a green card, you’re basically tied to them. If you lose your job, you only have 60 days to find one. New jobs. Everyone who goes to the United States on merit should be able to get a green card within three to five years.”

This may be one of the reasons why visa programs are tied to immigration. “H-1B is a high-skilled, worker mobility visa. It is not an immigrant visa. But it is associated with immigration and illegal immigration and becomes a sensitive issue,” said Shivendra Singh, vice president of global trade development at Nasscom Shivendra Singh said. India’s tech industry trade group told the BBC.

Many Americans believe the H-1B visa program is flawed. They cited widespread fraud and abuse, especially by major Indian IT companies, which are the largest recipients of these visas. In October, a U.S. court ruled that Cognizant Found guilty of discriminating against more than 2,000 non-Indian employees between 2013 and 2022, although the company plans to appeal. Last week, Farrah Stockman of The New York Times Wrote “For more than a decade, Americans working in the tech industry have been systematically laid off and replaced with cheaper H-1B visa holders.”

Mr. Chowdhury of Nasscom argued that H-1B visa workers are not poorly paid, with their median wage being more than twice the U.S. median. Companies also spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal and government fees on these expensive visas.

Moreover, it’s not one-way traffic: Indian tech giants have hired and supported nearly 600,000 U.S. workers and spent more than $1 billion to improve the quality of nearly 3 million students at 130 U.S. universities, Singh said. Skill. He said the Indian tech industry prioritizes hiring U.S. workers and only hires on H-1B visas when it cannot find locals with the required skills.

As Trump prepares to take office later this month, India is working to ensure the H-1B visa program remains secure. “Our two countries have a strong and growing economic and technological partnership and the mobility of skilled professionals is an important part of this relationship,” Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week. ”

So what should students who want to work in the United States do? “Any immigration reform in the United States will take time to implement. Students should choose the college that is best for them, no matter where it is. With a good immigration advisor, they will be able to figure out what to do,” Mr. Yale-Lore said.

Currently, despite the political turmoil in the United States, India’s interest in H-1B visas remains steadfast, with students determined to pursue the American dream.