The $100,000 increase for the H1-B Visa petition submitted after September 21 was made to please Trump’s “so-called MAGA” followers, according to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
Speaking to ANI on Monday, Mr. Tharoor stated that the President is attempting to win over the anti-immigration constituency, and that the abrupt increase in H-1B visa fees is related to internal politics in America. Notably, November of this year is when the US legislative elections are scheduled to take place.
Once more, domestic politics are the primary motivator. In an interview with ANI, Mr. Tharoor stated, “Trump feels, and those close to him have told him, that the easy H-1B has meant that many Americans who deserve a higher salary from the same companies are being bypassed by Indians who will accept a lower salary.”
Mr. Tharoor connected the action to the US political environment as a whole. “Today, the dominant political forces of the so-called MAGA movement are very openly anti-immigrants, and particularly visible immigrants, people of a different colour who can be spotted as not of the white ethnic mainstream,” he stated.
According to the former Union minister, Trump’s followers believe that Indian professionals are undercutting American labor by working for lower wages than the typical American.
Trump’s followers claim that an Indian techie who comes and works for $60,000 annually is displacing American workers who would not accept positions for less than $85 or $90,000 annually,” he added.
Mr. Tharoor claims that the purpose of raising immigration fees to $100,000 was to render low- and mid-level positions “unviable.” “So only the high-end, really desirable, irreplaceable top people who are worth it for a company to spend a hundred thousand dollars, only they will come,” he stated.
The Congress MP also mentioned that the US economy would eventually suffer as a result of the legislation. “Outsourcing the work will be the obvious solution. “What was once done in America can now be done in their global capability centers in India or in multinational company units in Europe,” he continued.
He made the point that, even with these higher fees, Indian tech professionals might still wind up working for US companies, but from India rather than the US.
Mr. Tharoor expressed concern that the new cost structure will render many contracts unfeasible for Indian IT firms. “We cannot pay a hundred thousand dollars per person to go off and do a contract which is actually a low-end contract,” he stated.
