Chinese, Indian professionals are starting to leave US over visa costs

Indian and Chinese technology professionals are returning home in rising numbers as layoffs, higher visa costs and repeated changes to H-1B rules squeeze foreign workers out of the U.S. job market. Around 15,100 Indian professionals returned home in 2025, up from 9,800 in 2024, and 7,300 had returned by June this year, according to figures from the Bengaluru staffing firm Xpheno reported by Business Standard.About 9,100 Indian professionals moved to the U.S. over the same period, and 21,200 went in 2025 against the 15,100 who came back. The gap between departures and returns has narrowed every year since 2023.President Donald Trump's Sept. 19, 2025 proclamation imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions filed for beneficiaries outside the U.S.Agency guidance confirmed the charge applied only to petitions filed on or after Sept. 21 that were approved for consular processing, leaving renewals, transfers and in-country status changes untouched.Judge Leo Sorokin of the federal district court in Boston struck the fee down on June 8, siding with 20 states and finding that the executive branch had exceeded its authority, NPR reported.The First Circuit refused on July 24 to reinstate the charge while the government appeals. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed on July 28 that it would stop collecting, and briefing on the appeal is expected to conclude Oct. 16, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.The proclamation expires by its own terms on Sept. 20 unless the administration extends it.A separate $4,000 fee applies to H-1B extension petitions from Sept. 9 under a rule the Department of Homeland Security has finalized, covering same-employer renewals at companies with at least 50 U.S. employees where more than half the workforce holds H-1B or L-1 status.The threshold captures Indian IT outsourcing firms and excludes most large American technology companies. Congress created the fee in 2015, and DHS first proposed extending it in June 2024 under the previous administration.The visa is granted in increments of up to three years to a six-year ceiling, with extensions past that only where a green card application is pending.Indian nationals accounted for 71% of approved petitions in fiscal 2024 and Chinese nationals about 12%, according to USCIS.Registrations for the fiscal 2027 lottery fell 38% to 211,600 from 343,981 a year earlier. Passengers enter the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) 'PreCheck' line at Ronald Reagan Washington National in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., March 16, 2026. Photo by Reuters The Straits Times, analyzing USCIS Employer Data Hub figures, calculated that approvals for the 100 largest sponsoring employers are on track to drop more than 10% this fiscal year.Amazon announced about 16,000 corporate job cuts in January after eliminating 14,000 positions in October 2025.Meta laid off roughly 8,000 employees, about 10% of its workforce, on May 20 and 21, and Visa is cutting around 2,600 roles.Half of Asian American and Pacific Islander adults experienced a hate act in 2025, the third consecutive year at that level, according to the annual State of Hate report released May 1 by Stop AAPI Hate, which operates the largest U.S. reporting center for anti-Asian incidents.Indian immigrants are the second largest foreign-born group in the country at about 3.2 million, after Mexicans, and the highest-earning at a median household income of $176,200, and among the most educated, with 82% holding at least a bachelor's degree, according to the Migration Policy Institute.India hosts 2,117 global capability centers employing 2.36 million people and generating $98.4 billion in revenue in fiscal 2026, according to the Zinnov-Nasscom landscape report.These centers are absorbing most of the returning senior talent, Xpheno co-founder Kamal Karanth told The Straits Times. Engineers coming back command no premium unless they carry data or artificial intelligence specialization, he said, and most accept smaller pay packages than they left.Some 535,600 Chinese students returned from overseas study in 2025 while more than 570,000 went abroad, Xinhua reported.Chinese immigrants are the third largest foreign-born group in the U.S. and had a median household income of $92,800 in 2023, above the $78,700 for immigrant-led households overall, with more than half holding a bachelor's degree or higher and 58% working in management, business, science and arts occupations, according to the Migration Policy Institute.Outbound numbers have fallen nearly 20% from their 2019 peak of 703,500, back to roughly 2016 levels, according to Caixin.The Financial Times reported in May that leading AI researchers and engineers are leaving Silicon Valley for senior roles at Chinese firms including ByteDance and Tencent.Stanford University's 2026 AI Index found the flow of global AI talent into U.S. institutions slowing sharply as China closed the research gap.