NEW DELHI – The long-running debate over the H-1B visa program has reached a new high, with the Trump administration saying it wants to “reinvent” the system. Because of this, many highly trained foreign workers are stuck in limbo. Surbhi Madan, a 30-year-old software engineer at Google, feels this very strongly.
Madan came to the US in 2013 to get a bachelor’s degree at Brown University. She said her life was “temporary” because she needed the H-1B visa to stay in the US. She told Business Insider that the program had two sides: it gave her chances that changed her life, but it also linked her to a system full of uncertainty.
Madan thinks she was lucky to get her H-1B visa on her first try in 2017. She said that the work environment was better back then, with more companies eager to help people get visas. This is very different from how things are now for new graduates, who she says have it harder.
Her anxiousness affects more than just her work; it also affects her daily choices. “I worry about making mistakes when I drive or file my taxes because I don’t want anything to threaten my stay in the country,” she said. This feeling of uncertainty also makes it hard to plan for the future, like when she needs to renew her apartment lease. Madan always chooses a one-year lease because she doesn’t know how long she would be able to stay in the US.
The psychological toll is made worse by how she thinks people see legal immigration. She told a story of how an immigration officer asked her why she was in the country when she came back after traveling abroad. Madan said, “I live here,” and the police answered, “You don’t live here; you work here.” This conversation makes it clear that people feel like they are just things instead of people establishing a life.
The Trump administration wants to put higher-skilled and higher-paid foreign workers at the top of the list. One way they might do this is by changing the existing random lottery system to a wage-based model. Supporters say this will protect American jobs and wages, but others say it might hurt entry-level workers and small businesses. The continuous debate and proposed revisions have made things even more difficult for H-1B visa holders, who have to deal with a complicated system while establishing their professions and lives.