The Trump administration's latest freeze on certain types of work visas, designed to protect American jobs during the COVID-19 crisis, is having a disproportionate effect on workers in India.
The
executive order
The change means tens of thousands of Indians who planned to immigrate to the U.S. this year will have to scrap or delay their plans.
On Tuesday, Sunny Kumar Hirpara awoke in India to news of a temporary ban on his exact type of visa.
"I woke up at like 5 o'clock in the morning, and I saw the messages. I almost started crying," Hirpara says.
Hirpara, 26, earned a master's degree and landed a job as an electrical engineer in Irvine, California. In March, he returned to India to visit his parents and convert his student visa to an H-1B, sponsored by his company. Then the pandemic hit. His paperwork was delayed.
"I'm sad that I invested five years studying in the U.S. and preparing for a job there," says Hirpara.
Last year,
nearly 280,000 Indians
In some cases, families separated by the pandemic now face more time apart. Social media is flooded with
pleas
Many have advanced degrees and work for U.S. tech giants. Google CEO Sundar Pichai
tweeted
"We as a country have been such a vibrant economy and society because of our ability to draw talent from around the world," Nisha Biswal, president of the U.S.-India Business Council, tells NPR. "If we stop, I think that will adversely impact our ability to be at the top."
India's IT industry association
called
Others, though, suggest that the visa freeze could be a boon to Indian companies, and even to the government.
"This is a fantastic opportunity," Vikram Ahuja, co-founder of Talent500, a recruitment firm in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru,
told India's NDTV channel
"The world is changing, and I think as long as great companies seek great talent, then location and physical proximity becomes irrelevant," Ahuja said.
He said H-1B visa holders could even still work for U.S. companies, but from home in India — thus paying into Indian tax coffers instead of U.S. ones.
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