H1-B visa: Indians have got 70% share each year after 2015; it helped US firms, say govt officials

Amid the rising criticisms of the H-1B visa in the United States, Indian officials noted that it is the American tech companies which is ultimately reaping the benefits of the visas. While speaking to The Indian Express, officials admitted that restrictions on the H-1B visa, of which Indians are prime beneficiaries, could impact India’s IT sector and its workers.

“It could certainly limit access for Indian workers in the US, leading to fewer IT companies here getting US-based contracts, which could contract their revenue. But the visa has immensely helped American companies in finding the right workers across the world, and whether they can substitute that with American people is not clear. Certainly, it’s not an easy change, and despite all the political signalling, the reality is that the visa helps American companies the most,” a senior government official told The Indian Express.

The remarks from the government official, who asked to remain anonymous, came days after the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called the popular H-1B visa program a “scam that lets foreign workers fill American jobs”. He insisted that hiring American workers should be the main priority of all US businesses.

US plans to overhaul the visa program

US President Donald Trump’s administration has signalled a significant overhaul of the US visa program, which involves a lottery-based allocation. Immigration has remained one of the most polarising subjects in the United States, with the Trump government imposing a heavy crackdown on foreigners.

This kind of scrutiny has also trickled down to the status of H-1B visa holders in the country. It is pertinent to note that people born in India are the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B program. US government data showed that Indians account for more than 70 per cent of all H-1B petitions approved each year since 2015. People born in China come a distant second, hovering at the 12-13 per cent mark since 2018.

According to The Indian Express, between October 2022 and September 2023, 72 per cent of the nearly 4 lakh visas issued under the H-1B program went to Indian nationals. During the same period, the top four Indian IT majors with a presence in the US – Infosys, TCS, HCL, and Wipro–got approval for around 20,000 employees to work on the H-1B visa, as per the figures shared by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.

Many in the United States argued that the H-1B visa holders are dragging down the wages of other workers, since they are hired cheaply. However, data collected by the non-profit American Immigration Council (AIC) showed that H-1B workers do not earn low wages or drag down other workers’ wages.

Meanwhile, Trump’s former ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk also came in support of the visa program. It is important to note that the H-1B programme started in 1990, with the intention of helping “employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the US workforce by authorising the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorised to work in the United States”. Since then, it has helped countless Indian professionals to live their American dreams.