After living with his parents for 24 years, Sai Kumar Kovouri decided to give up his life in India for a chance at the American dream. His plan? Get a master’s degree in computer science at the University of Missouri, then hopefully land a great tech job in California.
Now he worries a drastic change in the American political climate could derail his dreams.
Since President Donald Trump took office this year, Indian tech students in America — and Indians at home hoping to join them — are worrying new “America First” immigration policies may affect their futures.
“I haven’t planned what I’m going to do in two years after my graduation, because the situation here is not like before,” Kovouri said. “And even employers are not coming forward to give us jobs. I’m completely confused right now.”
In order to work in the US, educated foreigners must get a type of temporary work visa called an H-1B. This has long been a ticket to America for Indian students. Indian nationals working in the tech sector are the largest recipients; almost 70 percent of H-1B visas were granted to Indians in 2015, according to estimates by Bloomberg.
But on April 18, Trump signed a “Buy American, Hire American” executive order that promises to switch these visas from a random lottery system to one that gives preference to those with the highest level of skills or the highest pay. The order says it will “protect the interest of the United States workers in the administration of our immigration system…”
It’s unclear exactly who qualifies as a high-skilled worker under the order. But no doubt it will be harder for foreigners to find jobs because employers will have to prove they can’t find Americans with equivalent sets of skills.
Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, said he thinks the Trump administration will prioritise visas based on the highest wage, but doesn’t know if the type or location of a job will be considered.
“Taken into context of everything that the Trump administration has said and done, in terms of how they criminalized immigrants, it is hard for me to believe that they will do anything” that helps foreign workers over the long run, Costa said.
Ticket to an American job
Each year, the US gives out around 65,000 work visas. The H-1B programme was designed as a transitional stage between temporary employment and permanent residency. An employer may chose to apply for a green card for the worker, but getting one can take as long as 10-12 years depending on the worker’s home country. Workers from India and China tend to wait the longest because they get the most applications.
Indian IT outsourcing companies take the most H-1B recipients, paying them a lower wage than they would American workers. In some cases, an H-1B worker is 40 percent cheaper than an American.
H-1B workers declined comment for this story, saying they were afraid of the consequences of speaking publicly. If an employer decides to fire an H-1B worker, the worker can immediately be deported.
“(A) more fair system would be for a worker to petition for themselves for a green card,” Costa said. “(An) employer can control the worker and make sure they don’t complain because they don’t want to get fired and lose their permanent residency.”
But Mary Lacity sees another side of the coin. “Indian companies are global—they hire many Americans,” said Lacity, a professor of information systems at the University of Missouri who researches global IT services. “In turn, U.S. companies hire (a lot of) global talent, including professionals from India.”
Changing the equation
Kovouri is following a long tradition of Indians pursuing education and jobs in the United States. According to the Indian Students Mobility Report, about 150,000 students a year say goodbye to their loved ones in India in the hopes of making a better life for themselves in America. U.S. universities and companies, in turn, gain tuition and talent.
But policy changes and anti-immigrant sentiment threaten to change the equation.
Open Doors 2016, a report by the nonprofit Institute of International Education, indicates that students from India and China make up 47 percent of international student enrollment in the US. According to a recent survey, by the non-profit Advancing Global Higher Education, 26 percent of institutions reported declines in undergraduate Indian applications and 15 percent reported declines in graduate Indian applications.
One of the most frequently cited concerns from international students and their families is a perceived rise in student visas denials, especially for students from China, India and Nepal. Students and families are also concerned about having fewer employment opportunities after graduation and living amid a political climate less welcoming of foreigners. They fear Trump’s recent travel ban may expand to include more countries, making it tougher to get in and out of the US. And they fear possible changes to student visa rules down the road.
Family concerns about safety are another big deterrent for students. News headlines about protests and racism-fueled shootings strike fear in Indian parents.
“My parents are a little worried after the new immigration (policies) have been introduced and the shootings that have been happening,” Kovouri said. “They ask me every day if I am safe.”
Kovouri hasn’t personally experienced violence or racism, but understands that news such as the recent shootings of two Indian men at a Kansas bar can be scary when a child is halfway around the world.
Neeraj Krishna of West Bengal, India, vice president of marketing an Aiwa India, has a lot of friends currently in the United States who share similar concerns with him.
“Not only (about the) shooting, but also about verbal abuses,” said Krishna, who is an alumnus of India’s prestigious IIT Kharagpur.“At the same time, I think it is not such a huge problem that it may stop a large number of people from going to U.S. but definitely few people would restrict themselves.”
Standing to lose