Trump 2.0 has consistently made US visa application processes tougher and costlier. Its earlier effort to raise the fee for H-1Bs—work-linked visas of which Indians claim more than two-thirds—was struck down in court a couple of months ago. Earlier this month, the US department of homeland security proposed removing the 60-day grace period given to laid-off H-1B holders. And this week, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services broadened the scope to refuse residency applications from mid-September. Together, it’s a timely call to wake up from the American dream. The kind of ingenuity Indian companies have recently shown in diversifying sourcing and selling when faced with massive disruptions like the Ukraine and West Asia wars may now need to be applied to the biggest services market of all.
