The US’s announcement of a sweeping hike in H-1B visa fees, introducing a steep $1,00,000 annual charge, has sparked widespread confusion and concern among skilled foreign workers and employers.
The move is expected to dramatically reshape how American companies hire skilled foreign workers, with Indian IT professionals, who comprise the majority of H-1B recipients, bearing the brunt.
The new fee marks a dramatic jump from current H-1B visa processing expenses, usually just a few thousand dollars. This charge will be levied on top of the existing vetting costs. Authorities have yet to decide whether the full $100,000 will be collected upfront or annually.
Now, reports have emerged that between the administration’s announcement and a subsequent clarification, confusion and panic swept across immigrant communities. The White House later clarified that the $100,000 is a one-time payment and not applicable to current H-1B holders.
Many US companies quickly told their employees overseas to return. They cautioned that delays could lead to paying the new fee or worse getting help abroad. The announcement led to anxiety among H-1B visa holders who were outside the US.
A software engineer from Texas was holidaying in Vijayawada when she heard the news. Reports said she struggled to book a return ticket. Airline websites kept crashing. To her relief, after several failed attempts, she finally got a one-way ticket to Dallas on Qatar Airways.
Now, the catch: it cost her about $2,000 more than twice her original round-trip fare.
She told agencies that it had been very hard to get a ticket and that panic had made her overspend.
Amid this chaos, a coordinated online effort appeared to target H-1B holders attempting to return to the US. A thread on a forum urged users to search for India–US flights and begin the checkout process without completing the purchase. The goal was to overload airline systems and prevent visa holders from booking return tickets before the fee took effect.
The thread, which was also circulated among Donald Trump supporters on social media, reportedly said that Indians were just waking up after the H-1B news and asked if they wanted to keep them in India, they should clog the flight reservation system.
Users encouraged each other to hold multiple seats on popular routes without confirming bookings, thereby inflating fares and reducing availability. One user claimed to have locked 100 seats. Another said they were currently clogging the last seat on a Delhi–Newark flight.
Some of the activity was directed at an airline’s booking platform. The concerned airlines however claimed that its site was functioning normally.
A co-founder of a global anti-hate organisation said the operation was specifically intended to spread fear among H-1B visa holders.
They reportedly said that the online forum involved has long been used to radicalise individuals and has hosted manifestos linked to several mass shooters in the US.
A head of a hate and extremism research center was quoted as saying that the trolling campaign highlighted how easily disruptive actions can be carried out online. He noted that in this age of information warfare, bad actors are able to launch such operations with just a few keystrokes.
The H-1B visa programme lets US companies hire foreign workers with specialised skills. The visa is valid for three years and can be extended to six. Every year, the US issues 85,000 H-1B visas through a lottery system, of which about 75% reportedly go to Indian nationals.
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