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A large number of Indian H-1B visa applicants are currently “trapped” in their home country after the US cancelled pre-scheduled interviews.
Interviews for thousands of H-1B visa applicants have been postponed by several months as the US government seeks to scrutinize the applicants’ social media posts and online profiles.
Some applicants whose visa appointments were scheduled for last week received emails from US immigration authorities informing that their interviews are being pushed back as late as May next year.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs has flagged the issue with the US government.
Indian spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said, “We have flagged these issues and our concerns to the US side, both here in New Delhi and in Washington DC.”
He said a large number of Indians are “stranded,” resulting in “hardships” for them and their families.
From December 15, the US expanded the vetting of social media accounts to all H-1B visa applicants as well as their dependents.
“In every visa case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States and that he or she has credibly established his or her eligibility for the visa sought, including that the applicant intends to engage in activities consistent with the terms of admission. The Department of State regularly shifts appointments as needed to match resource availability,” a US Embassy spokesperson said.
The added scrutiny for social-media accounts came three months after the US government increased the fee for new H-1B applicants to US $100,000 from about $2,000-$5,000, depending on employer size and other costs.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced further changes to the H-1B work visa selection process. The long-standing random lottery will be replaced with a weighted system that prioritises higher-skilled and higher-paid foreign workers.
The H-1B visa system has been a target for the Trump administration as part of its wide-ranging immigration and labor reforms.
In December, potential reforms to the scheme led to an acrimonious public row. Ill-advised comments from Vivek Ramaswamy about Americans’ failings in the job market—including a bizarre suggestion that Americans spend too much time idolizing Zach and Slater from Saved by the Bell and have too many sleepovers when they could be studying—led to his removal from DOGE and also caused the first open break between Elon Musk and the Trump administration.
Critics of the H-1B program have argued that it allows companies to suppress wages, especially in the tech sector, and disadvantages American workers.
According to government data, India was by far the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of all approved visas, with China accounting for 11.7%.
In the first half of 2025, Amazon.com and its cloud-computing unit, AWS, received approval for more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Microsoft and Meta Platforms were granted over 5,000 H-1B visa approvals each.
At the beginning of last month, it was announced that close to 200 companies were being investigated for abusing the H-1B system.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer said 175 investigations were now taking place into companies using the H-1B system.
The enforcement initiative, called “Project Firewall,” began in September, when President Trump announced the addition of a $100,000 fee for H-1B petitions.
“We have over 175 investigations that we’ve opened, and for the first time in history, as a Secretary of Labor, I have signed those investigations personally, because we want to make sure that these companies are not abusing. We want to make sure that they’re protecting the American worker, first by one: posting the jobs available to Americans.
“Two: if they do need to use the H-1B, Visa Program, within the program, we have to make sure that they’re paying those fair wages, not to depress the American wages. And if that employee leaves that company, they have to make sure that they’re posting that with the government so that we know where those employers have gone and those employees.
“So it’s been somewhat of a problem, but we want to protect the American worker first, and Project Firewall will do that. We will be actively investigating these companies if they’re getting in the way of protecting foreign workers over American ones.”
