'H-1B Visa Fee Hike Driven By Trump's Domestic Politics': Shashi Tharoor

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor attributed the $100,000 increase in H1-B Visa petition fees after September 21 to a political decision aimed at pleasing Donald Trump's "so-called MAGA" supporters.

Speaking to ANI on Monday, Tharoor explained that the dramatic H-1B visa fee hike reflects America's domestic political dynamics, with the President seeking support from anti-immigration constituencies. This comes as the US prepares for legislative elections in November.

"The motives are principally driven by domestic politics. Trump believes, and his advisors have convinced him, that the easy H-1B system has allowed companies to bypass Americans who deserve higher salaries in favor of Indians willing to work for less," Tharoor stated in his ANI interview.

Tharoor connected this policy change to the broader political environment in the United States. "The dominant political forces of the so-called MAGA movement are openly anti-immigrant, particularly targeting visible immigrants whose different ethnicity distinguishes them from the white mainstream," he remarked.

The former Union minister clarified that Trump supporters view Indian professionals as undercutting American workers by accepting lower compensation. "An Indian tech professional working for sixty thousand dollars annually is, according to Trump's supporters, taking opportunities from Americans who wouldn't accept less than eighty-five or ninety thousand dollars yearly," he explained.

Tharoor suggested that raising visa fees to $100,000 was deliberately designed to make lower and middle-tier positions "unviable." "Only the high-end, truly essential specialists whom companies consider worth the hundred-thousand-dollar investment will be brought over," he added.

The Congress MP warned that this measure could ultimately prove counterproductive for the American economy. "The logical response will be outsourcing. Work previously done in America can now be performed at multinational companies' European divisions or at their global capability centers in India," he noted.

He observed that despite these increased fees, Indian tech professionals might continue performing the same functions for American companies, but from India rather than the United States.

Expressing concern for Indian IT firms, Tharoor stated that the new fee structure would render many contracts unfeasible for Indian technology companies. "We cannot allocate a hundred thousand dollars per employee to fulfill what are essentially low-end contracts," he concluded.