'Panic, uncertainty': Indian techie recalls moment when friends asked him to leave his own wedding and fly to US

When President Donald Trump announced the $100,000 fee for H-1Bs last September, Indian techie Abhishek Abhyankar was in India for his wedding. At that time, it was not immediately clear who will have to pay the fee and Abhyankar recalled that his friends panicked and urged him to book the first flight to Seattle and attend his reception virtually from the US. Abhyankar refused and later he and his wife, who is also an H-1B visa holder, did not face any issues coming back to the US, but neither of them forgot the incident, and it served as a reminder of how conditional their status is in the US. "That created a lot of panic and uncertainty."

The $100,000 H-1B visa fee is for companies to pay when they make a new petition to hire from outside the US on the H-1B visa. It was not meant for Avyankar who has completed a decade in the US.

Abhyankar told the Seattle Times that he came to the US in 2014 for his graduate studies and then got a job and settled down. His employer already applied for his Green Card in 2017. But he does not see himself becoming a permanent resident in the US. Not because of the long waiting time. But he sees himself returning to India eventually. “The uncertainty of not being in a correct status looms heavily on my mind,” he said.

For foreign-born workers in the US, it is one announcement after another. And then later come the clarifications. For example, when the $100,000 H-1B visa fee was announced, there was no clarity on who will have to pay it. Panic spread as visa holders thought everyone outside the country will have to pay the fee. Later, it was stated that companies hiring H-1B visa holders after the date of the proclamation has to pay the fee. Similarly, the Trump administration recently announced that non-immigrant visa holders would not be allowed to wait for their Green Cards in the US -- they will have to go back to their countries and come through the consular process. Days later, the administration said there is no need to panic as most of the visa holders would get to stay in the US.
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