- Technology companies urge employees to return in the midst of the confusion of visa rates.
- The Trump visa rates order causes panic among H-1B holders.
- Debate on the impact of the H-1B Visa program on the US labor market.
New York: panic, confusion and anger reigned when workers in H-1B visas of India and China were forced to leave travel plans and return to the United States after President Donald Trump imposed new visa rates, in line with their wide repression of immigration.
Technology and banks sent urgent notes to employees, advising them to return before a deadline of 12:01 am this Sunday (4:01 am GMT), and telling them not to leave the country.
A White House official clarified on Saturday that the order applied only to the new applicants and not to the holders of existing visas or those who seek renovations, addressing part of the confusion about who would be affected by the order.
But Trump's proclamation had already activated the alarms in Silicon Valley.
Hurry us
Fearing that they were not allowed to return once the new rule entered into force, several Indian nationals at the San Francisco airport said they shortened their vacations.
“It is a situation in which we had to choose between the family and stay here,” said a large technology company whose wife had been on a flight of Emirates from San Francisco to Dubai that was scheduled to leave at 5:05 pm local time (12:05 am GMT) on Friday.
The flight was delayed more than three hours after several Indian passengers who received news from the order or memoranda of their employers demanded that they move, said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity. At least five passengers were finally allowed, said the engineer.
A video of the incident circulated on social networks, showing some people who left the plane. Reuters could not independently verify the veracity of the video.
The engineer's wife, also head of the H-1B Visa, chose to go to India to take care of her sick mother. “It's quite tragic. We have built a life here,” he told Reuters.
In the popular application of Chinese social networks, people in H -1B visas shared their experiences of having to hurry to the United States, in some cases only a few hours after landing in China or another country.
Some compared the panic that they felt with their experience during the Covid-19 pandemic, when they flew urgently to the United States before a prohibition of traveling.
“My feelings are a mixture of disappointment, sadness and frustration,” said a woman in a publication with a user who manages Emily's “life in New York.”
The woman said she had approached a flight from United Airlines from New York to Paris, which began to tax, but after a little return to the airline, the captain agreed to return to the door to let her leave the plane.
Feeling what she described Reuters as “insignificant” and “shake”, canceled the planned trip to France, abandoning plans with friends, including some that flew from China, after he received a letter from his company's lawyers asking employees abroad to return to the United States.
Companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs were among those who sent urgent emails to their employees with travel notices.
Trump's change in H-1b
Since he assumed the position in January, Trump has initiated a great repression of immigration, including movements to limit some forms of legal immigration.
This step to remodel the H-1B visas program represents the highest profile effort of its administration so far to rework temporary employment visas and underline what critics have said is a protectionist agenda.
It is a U-turn of Trump's previous position when he put on the side of the single ally and the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, in a public dispute over the use of the H-1B visa, saying that he completely supported the program for foreign technology workers despite the fact that some of his followers opposed.
Trump administration officials say that the visa allows companies to suppress wages, and stop it opens more jobs for US technological workers. The supporters of the program argue that they bring highly qualified essential workers to fill the talent gaps and keep competitive companies.
In the hours after Trump's proclamation, social networks were flooded with debate about the scope of the order and the dismay of what many saw as a movement that attenuated the lure of the United States as an attractive destination to work.
An anonymous user in Rednote said his life was like that of an “H-1B slave.” The person interrupted a vacation in Tokyo to return to the United States, describing him as “a return of real life 'Fast & Furious' to the United States”, a reference to the successful Hollywood series about street races.
Trump's H-1B proclamation said: “Some employers, using practices now adopted by entire sectors, have abused the H-1B statute and their regulations to artificially suppress salaries, resulting in a disadvantageous labor market for US citizens.”
The Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, could exempt the petitioners from the tariff at his discretion, said the proclamation.
The Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, said Friday that companies would have to pay $ 100,000 per year for H-1B workers.
However, the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said in an X post on Saturday that this was not an annual rate, only a unique rate that applied to each request.
A Nvidia engineer, who has lived in the United States for 10 years, told Reuters at San Francisco airport that he had been on vacation in Japan with his wife and baby when he hastened to reprogram his flight back after hearing the news.
“He feels surreal,” he said. “Everything is changing in an instant.”
