American media shreds Trump's H-1B move, points out irony: 'Biggest US firms run by someone who grew up in India'

The rule, which took effect September 21, has already provoked strong opposition from tech companies and immigration advocates. With Indian nationals representing more than 70% of all H-1B recipients, the financial and operational blow will fall hardest on India's IT services sector

US President Donald Trump’s hasty move to impose a steep $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications has drawn criticism not just from countries like India but also the American media.

Several US media outlets have warned that the policy could choke the very pipeline of global talent that fuelled America’s rise as a technology superpower.

India had earlier said that the policy was "likely to have humanitarian consequences". The visa route is used heavily by thousands of Indian skilled professionals to work in US for top tech companies.

The US media highlighted how Indian engineers and coders have been the backbone of innovation in Silicon Valley for decades.

“It definitely could be painful for the US in terms of innovation,” Charles-Henry Monchau, chief investment officer at Syz Group, told CNBC.

The New York Times called the measure "a direct hit" on India’s brightest minds.

“Few programs have shaped the American economy in recent decades as profoundly as H-1B visas, particularly in their role of bringing Indian engineers to Silicon Valley,” NYT said in a report, adding that the move risks unravelling decades of US–India collaboration in education, research and innovation.

In an analysis following the move, CNN said that Trump's decision will "disproportionately impact skilled professionals from India" and "upend the career paths of hundreds of thousands of individuals".

It added that it will also disrupt the business models of top tech firms who rely heavily on global talent.

Ironically, some of the most successful American corporate leaders today are products of the H-1B system itself.

"The most striking evidence of this success is visible across the top leadership of today’s tech giants: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen were all born in India and earned degrees from American universities," the CNN report noted.

In another report, NYT pointed out how some of the biggest firms in US are being run by someone who grew up in India, citing people like Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Indra Nooyi (who ran PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018).

It said that the move will make it nearly 20-30 times more expensive for US firms to hire workers from India.

Alexander Slater, MD at Capstone, told NYT that the new rules will weaken a "significant bond between the two countries".

On the other hand, White House officials have maintained the policy change would help ensure that companies were giving priority to hiring domestic workers. “President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this common-sense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down wages,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement.

However, CNBC, in a report, warned that the move risks turning the US away from being the "world’s premier talent hub" just as other nations are racing to attract skilled immigrants.

It pointed out that Canada, Singapore and the UK have already begun easing pathways for foreign tech workers, many of them Indian, while Washington is making entry prohibitively expensive.

In a research note, Japanese financial services group Nomura predicted the fee will likely accelerate a strategic shift towards increased offshoring and automation. It also forecast a rise in hiring in “near-shore” locations like Mexico and Canada, with the costly H-1B visa being reserved only for “extremely critical roles” where local talent is unavailable.