A US man has sparked outrage among Indian social media users after he posted on X, questioning why Indians were employed in airport gate agent roles in Washington DC, and labelling them “parasites”. The incident drew sharp condemnation from Indians, and support from MAGA warriors.
Musician and builder Sean Carpenter (@TheUltimateSean) ignited the controversy with his initial post: "Sitting in the DC airport, listening to three gate agents speaking Hindi behind me. Tell me why we need Indians to work the gates at airports again? H1-B is a complete fraud." The H1-B programme visa allows foreign guest workers to take up specialised jobs in the US.
Carpenter's post quickly garnered over 11,000 views and elicited a wave of angry reactions from Indians, who widely condemned it as a racist rant. He subsequently deleted the backlash from Indians on his initial post and called them "parasites." "All you parasites: Why not just make India great again? Or do you need the British back to do that?" he wrote.
Responding to accusations of racism, Carpenter asserted, "I love that they're claiming "racism" is somewhere in here, as if I care what they think. For the parasites: It's not racist to expect an airport gate agent to be able to speak English clearly, nor to want jobs to go to Americans first."
When another X user, Kshitij Kiran Karnik (@kkarnik03), commented: "Person distressed by presence of foreign airport workers! Here are some options, a) try breathing exercises to relieve stress, b) change outlook in life, and if that doesn’t work, c) stop air travel," Carpenter countered: "'Distressed' wasn't exactly the emotion I was feeling. How about (d) galvanise heaps of support for abolishing our broken visa laws? Because that's what I'm doing, and all the responses to me only help!"
This incident is not an isolated backlash against H1-B visas. Recently, Walmart’s decision to lay off nearly 1,500 employees led to MAGA supporters falsely accusing the retail giant of replacing American workers with foreign employees on H-1B visas. This speculation gained momentum as users targeted Walmart’s global tech division and even singled out Indian-origin CTO Suresh Kumar, despite a complete lack of evidence to support these claims.
According to Bloomberg, the Walmart layoffs are, in fact, part of a broader restructuring effort aimed at "streamlining operations and enhancing decision-making efficiency." The affected roles span across Walmart’s US e-commerce segment, its advertising division Walmart Connect, and other departments, not solely the global tech unit often associated with H-1B hires.
The episode at the DC airport underscores the escalating anti-immigrant sentiment in certain quarters of the US, with H1-B visas and foreign workers, particularly those of Indian origin, becoming frequent targets of unfounded accusations.
'Need competent, quality people in US': DOnald Trump on H-1B visa
In January, US President Donald Trump, took a nuanced stance on the ongoing debate surrounding the H-1B visa programme and highlighted the importance of bringing skilled individuals into the country.
“I like both sides of the argument,” he said when asked about the contentious issue among his support base. “But I also like very competent people coming into our country, even if that involves them training and helping other people that may not have the qualifications they do. I’m not just talking about engineers — I’m talking about people at all levels.”
Trump acknowledged his personal familiarity with the H-1B programme, noting that he had utilised it himself. “H-1B, I know the programme very well. I use the programme. Maître d', wine experts, even waiters, high-quality waiters — you’ve got to get the best people,” he noted.
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