By Krishna Jha
To achieve the goal, to attain the highest, colonialism is always undeterred. Nothing can stop the process. From Moneycontrol News, it has come to light that US Vice President JD Vance on October 9, 2026, had crossed all bars when he said, H-1B visa holders earn 20,000 dollars less than American citizens employed in positions that fetch almost the double. The difference that keeps widening has come to 48,000 dollars for workers hired through foreign outsourcing firms. Making almost the horrid attack, he even went up to comment that American business brings indentured “servants” and lays off the Americans.
It is also true that Americans are getting laid off, but the rate of payment for them has not gone down much as the American workers are getting twice of the wage payment to workers hired from foreign countries. Vance accused corporations of exploiting the wage difference while laying off domestic employees.
In contrast to what Vance keeps saying, it is very interesting to observe the double edged policy that the imperialist country like America follows. Just recently, US President Donald Trump celebrated American technological greatness in White House in which of six technological titans receiving country’s highest science and tech Awards, five were born outside America. On the other hand, MAGA movement itself has been based on the understanding that America does not need foreigners to help the country attain greatness. Educational attainment among Indian immigrants tends to far exceed other groups: 82 percent of adults held at least a bachelor’s degree in 2024.
So far as the Indian immigrants began arriving in the United States in notable numbers in the early 19th century, when workers from the Punjab region settled primarily in California to work in agriculture, lumber, and railroad construction. Although their numbers remained relatively modest compared to European arrivals, Indian and other non-European immigrants faced growing political opposition through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, culminating in restrictions such as the Immigration Act of 1917, which effectively banned immigration from most of the Asia-Pacific region. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 reversed course, abolishing national-origin quotas and opening pathways through family reunification and employment-based visas for skilled professionals. In the wake of passage of this law, the Indian immigrant population grew rapidly, roughly doubling each decade between 1960 and 1990.
Today, approximately 3.2 million Indian immigrants reside in the United States, comprising 6 percent of the total foreign-born population of 50.2 million people. Immigrants from India rank as the second largest immigrant group in the country, after Mexicans.
Indian immigrants tend to have considerably higher levels of education than both the overall immigrant population and the U.S. born, particularly at the advanced degree level. Their prominence in high-skilled sectors is reflected in visa data: In fiscal year (FY) 2024, Indian nationals received 71 percent of all H-1B visas for highly skilled workers. And in the 2024-25 academic year, India was the leading source of international students in the United States, most of whom were enrolled in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) program. Partly because of their prominence in STEM programs, Indian nationals have been particularly affected by the Trump administration’s tightened immigration policies, including imposition of a 100,000 Dollar fee for new H-1B petitions, enhanced vetting for H-1B and H-4 dependent visa applicants and for international students, and significantly longer wait times for in-person visa interviews.
Most immigration of Indians to the United States has occurred over the past 25 years. The Indian immigrant population increased fivefold from 1980 to 2000 and then tripled from 2000 to 2024. The rate of growth for this population has been significantly higher than that of the overall foreign-born population in the United States, increasing 78 percent from 2010 to 2024, triple the 26 percent for all immigrants.
The Trump administration’s decision to suspend eight major technology company including Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini, from the US Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme is unlikely to cause an immediate financial hit to Indian IT firms, according to analysts.
The US Department of Labour has said it will not accept new or process pending permanent labour certification applications involving these companies.
So far as arguments of Vance are concerned, he is basically saying that foreign workers can displace the American workers and they may become vulnerable to employers because their immigration status is connected to their jobs. It is a point that the tech executives try to stress since it concerns deserves scrutiny where companies exploit visa programmes, a blanket hostility to foreign talent may not be fully possible, especially when the administration celebrates at a gala scale their achievements that has come helpful to American companies global leaders. “A foreign worker becomes a problem when he applies for Green Card but becomes a national treasure when he collects a medal. (IPA Service)
