H-1B Crackdown Sends Tech Talent Back to India, China
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Trump administration's H-1B policies include a proposed US$100,000 application fee struck down by a federal judge in June, plus a separate US$4,000 surcharge for visa extensions and renewals proposed from September.
- H-1B petition approvals at the top 100 employers — Amazon, TCS, Infosys, Apple and Microsoft — are on track to drop more than 10 per cent in fiscal year 2026 versus 2025, per Straits Times analysis of USCIS data.
- Indian returnees climbed to roughly 15,100 in 2025 from 9,800 in 2024, with about 7,300 already returning in 2026, according to Bengaluru-based talent firm Xpheno.
- Chinese returnees are also swelling, with China's Ministry of Education reporting 536,000 students returned in 2025, up 8.3 per cent year-on-year, as China's tech sector actively pulls talent home from Silicon Valley.
- Indian and Chinese nationals make up about 70 per cent and 12 per cent of H-1B holders respectively, and both groups face rising social hostility and online racist attacks, per AAPI Equity Alliance reports.
- India's Global Capability Centres have collectively hired 100,000 employees annually since 2023, absorbing about 7,000 mid-to-senior tech professionals in the past 12 months — including 2,800 returnees from the US — though Xpheno notes returnees typically take pay cuts.
- Bob, a 32-year-old Chinese returnee, left the US after declining to re-enter the H-1B lottery, telling The Straits Times his quality of life is now better in Beijing than in the States and that the green-card wait 'felt like too big of a trade-off.'
Why it matters: US tech employers are losing their foreign talent pipeline at scale — 15,100 Indians returned in 2025 and H-1B approvals at top sponsors are set to fall 10 per cent — while India's GCCs absorb mid-level returnees at lower pay and China's booming tech sector captures the highest-value workers, a dynamic the source flags as carrying 'serious implications for the technology race between China and the US.'
Ask SkimNews
