On H-1B visa fee hike, Shashi Tharoor tells how new rule may harm Trump: 'America doesn't have enough…'

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor analysed the "assumptions" US President Donald Trump may have made while deciding on implementing the H-1B visa fee hike to $100,000 (about ₹88 lakh).

The Trump administration increased the fee for H1-B visas last week from thousands to $100,000 in a bid to protect jobs for American workers. Notably, Indians and Chinese nationals dominate the US' H1-B visa programme. Trump's move raised concerns among students who want to study and work in the US — to fulfill their "American dream".

What did Shashi Tharoor say?

In an exclusive interview with The Wire, Shashi Tharoor said that if Trump wants to deny jobs to Indians and other H-1B holders, and give those jobs to American people, then it “requires America to have an adequate pool of people to do all these jobs.”

But he feels that America “doesn't have enough engineering graduates and software professionals.”

Shashi Tharoor mentioned in the interview the supposition that an Indian "might come in and do a job for $60,000 a year that an American would expect at least 80 or 85 for and therefore the companies are trying to nickel and dime the American professional by hiring a foreigner."

Noting that we don't know that this supposition is true," he said, “...American citizens already in the country, therefore, would be the ones getting these jobs that will now be denied to Indians and others.”

He went on to say that “this assumption, for example, requires America to have an adequate pool of people to do all these jobs.”

How new rule could harm Trump

Tharoor said, "…since my understanding is America doesn't have enough engineering graduates and software professionals and all of these other things to do this kind of work, the net result of Mr Trump's decision is more likely to be that some of the jobs currently being done in the US will instead be outsourced to the branches of these companies in England and Ireland and maybe even France and Germany and maybe even more to India."

"Therefore, it will turn out to be a bit of an own goal for Mr. Trump that seems to me the smart analysis coming out of Washington and Silicon Valley," Tharoor said.

New H-1B visa: Why Trump imposed $100,000 fee

On September 19, the White House released a fact sheet detailing the conditions under which the new H-1B visa fee applies. The factsheet was divided into three sections: "Protecting American Jobs", "Combating H-1B Abuses" and "Prioritizing American Workers"

The factsheet claimed that the share of IT workers with H-1B visas has risen from 32 percent in FY 2003 to over 65 percent in recent years.

It further emphasised that American companies are laying off their American technology workers and seemingly replacing them with H-1B workers. "One company was approved for 5,189 H-1B workers in FY 2025, while laying off roughly 16,000 US employees this year," it said.

"American IT workers have even been reportedly forced to train their foreign replacements under nondisclosure agreements. The H-1B program is creating disincentives for future American workers to choose STEM careers, which threatens our national security," it added.