US H‑1B fee hike could cripple Indian tech talent, warns Congress leader Pawan Khera

Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera took to X on Saturday to sound the alarm over the United States’ decision to extend the $100,000 H‑1B visa fee for another twelve months. He warned that the move is likely to bite hard into the pipeline that carries Indian IT professionals and fresh graduates from campus to the U.S. workplace.

‘The impact is clear,’ Khera wrote, flagging a cascade of problems: first, Indian students on F‑1 visas will find the jump to H‑1B status far tougher; second, smaller Indian IT firms that rely on sponsoring a handful of H‑1Bs may decide it isn’t worth the cost at all; and third, a wave of talent could start looking north‑west – to the UK, Canada or Australia – in search of a smoother immigration route.

He added a more subtle, yet worrying, angle – fewer migrants could mean lower remittance flows back to India over time, a hit to a source of foreign exchange that the country has long counted on.

“Modi bent over backwards to appease Trump,” Khera jabbed, suggesting that the Indian government’s diplomatic overtures have not shielded the nation from the fallout. “Trump got the appeasement. India took the humiliation and the hit.”

The fee hike is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to tighten oversight of the H‑1B programme. An executive order signed last week directs the Departments of State, Labor and Homeland Security to factor in any recent or planned layoffs of U.S. workers when they review H‑1B petitions. A simultaneous proclamation renews the $100,000 fee for certain high‑salary petitions – a charge first introduced in September 2025.

According to a White House fact sheet, the 2025 measures already slashed H‑1B registrations from the biggest IT outsourcing firms by about 92 %. The administration argues that the fee and stricter scrutiny are needed to curb “abuses” that they claim drive down wages for American skilled workers.

Critics, however, say the policy is a blunt instrument that disproportionately harms foreign talent and the Indian economy. They point out that many of the firms affected are mid‑size companies that serve as a training ground for future tech leaders, and that the higher cost could push them to shift operations overseas or rely more heavily on automation.

For students, the stakes are personal. An Indian graduate who has spent years studying in the U.S. on an F‑1 visa may now face an uncertain future, forced to consider alternative destinations or, worse, to abandon the dream of working in America altogether.

As the debate unfolds, all eyes will be on whether the U.S. will revisit the fee or whether India will seek new partnerships to retain its tech talent. In the meantime, Khera’s message is simple: the current path threatens to turn a once‑robust pipeline into a leaky faucet, and that is a cost India can scarcely afford.