New Delhi: US President Donald Trump announced that the H-1B visa application fee should be raised significantly to $100,000, as opposed to $10,000 previously. The action has sparked anxiety among international tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which have requested their employees on H-1B visas to relocate to America. The move has rocked the Indian technology industry that has traditionally used the H-1B programme as an avenue through which engineers and graduates could work in the US.
Prof. V. Kamakoti, director of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M), has, however, presented a different picture. Speaking to ANI, he said the high visa fee was a blessing in disguise for India. He reasoned that the policy would assist in keeping the smart talent within the nation and enhance the research and innovation environment in India.
Talent retention and shifting mindset
As Kamakoti indicated, this could make most of the Indian students rethink moving abroad, preferring to build careers in India. In IIT Madras, he observed that of the recent graduates, it is only 5 per cent who have been able to secure jobs abroad. He indicated that the trend of visiting the US is long gone in India and there are plenty of research and innovation opportunities available in India. He had embraced the idea that more students will remain to boost the domestic tech ecosystem.
The White House had justified the move by claiming that the fee hike was focused on ending systematic misuse of the H-1B programme. According to the officials, the programme was being abused by the companies to substitute the American labourers with the cheap foreign labour. In the future, visa applications that include the payment of the $100,000 will only be taken into consideration, and it will become considerably difficult for foreign workers to access the US job domain.