H-1B Shock: America’s Self-Inflicted Wound

By C. Subrahmanyam | Hyderabad | September 21, 2025

A Sledgehammer on the Backbone of America

America is shooting itself in the foot. Skilled Indian immigrants — the very people who keep Silicon Valley buzzing and Wall Street humming — are now being slapped with a back-breaking $100,000 fee per H-1B visa.

This is no bureaucratic tweak. It is a sledgehammer blow to the backbone of America’s economy.

Let’s call out the truth:

Indian H-1Bs contribute hundreds of billions in taxes, as economist David J. Bier has shown.
The National Academies of Sciences declared that skilled immigration boosts U.S. GDP by 0.3–0.4% every year.

Yet, Trump’s executive order bulldozes past hard data in favour of raw political theatre.

A Question of History, A Lesson of Psychology

Some whisper that Indians abroad “remain submissive” — blaming 1,000 years of oppression, as if genetics carry servitude.

Hard truth: there is no gene for obedience.
What exists is izzat — the crushing weight of family honour and social conformity that shackled Indian society for centuries.

But modern sociology (Varma, 2010) proves this is learned behaviour, not bloodline destiny. And history shows Indians adapt, innovate, and rise once the chains are broken.

Today, those chains are breaking. The age of silence is over. Indians abroad are no longer submissive, no longer silent.

Voices from Hyderabad’s Tech Corridors

Balaraman (IT Expert): “For decades, we worked 14-hour days, silently building America’s software skeleton. Silence was mistaken for weakness. Not anymore.”
Chaturvedi (IT Expert): “They called us submissive because we didn’t shout. But building empires brick by brick was never submission — it was strength. Now, we’ll shout if we must.”
Makheeja (IT Expert): “$100,000 for a visa? That’s not a fee, that’s a ransom. And when you ransom talent, you ransom your own future. Washington will learn it the hard way.”
Roshni (IT Expert): “Our fathers kept their heads down. We won’t. We choose where we build, and we decide where we lead. We are not submissive, and we are not silent.”
MediShah (IT Expert): “America thinks it holds the remote control. The truth is simple — pull out Indian talent, and the tech towers will flicker like a power cut in peak summer Hyderabad.”

The Ghost of Uganda, 1972

History has a cruel way of repeating itself.

In 1972, Idi Amin expelled 70,000–80,000 Indians from Uganda. Within months, the economy collapsed — GDP fell 5% (World Bank data).

Amin’s chest-thumping nationalism became Uganda’s economic funeral march.

Today, America risks scripting its own replay.

Tech firms will bleed talent.
Innovation will dry up.
“Protection” will turn into self-destruction.

Mass ouster of productive immigrants will not weaken Indians — it will weaken America.

The Harsh Verdict

This is not immigration reform. This is economic vandalism dressed as patriotism.

Indians built America’s tech towers brick by brick. To throw them out now is to pull down the very scaffolding holding up the U.S. economy.

History warns. Data screams. Logic pleads.
But politics, it seems, has stuffed its ears.

$100,000 H-1B BOMB SHELL DEFUSED: US CONFIRMSONE-TIME FEE,NOT ANNUAL