While US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dined together, the delegates of the two countries sat together for hours discussing various issues ranging from trade to illegal migrants to defence cooperation to transfer of technology, hundreds of thousands of Indian students studying in the US face uncertainty.
Though Donald Trump and his close aide and DOGE chief Elon Musk have publicly batted for an H1 B Visa, the debate on migration and foreign workers has taken a new twist.
Lakhs Of Indian Students Face Uncertainty
After President Trump declared a national emergency in the areas with the southern border and asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and deport hundreds of thousands of illegal “aliens”, the mood in the masses has become belligerent.
Also Read: Is Donald Trump Arm-Twisting India To Buy Costlier Crude Oil? Will New Delhi Bow to US Blackmail?
With the slogans of “America First” and “Make America Great Again” reverberating across the US, the mood is set against migrants, particularly illegal migrants.
Besides the H1 B Visa, US laws allow students Optional Practical Training (OPT) Visa.
What Is OPT?
Under this visa, the students are allowed to live in the US and find a job up to 90 days post-graduation.
The students of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) can extend this visa for 24 more months.
Indians are the biggest beneficiaries of the scheme as 97,556 or 41.3% of them received this visa in 2023-243.
3,31,602 Indian students were living in the US during this period.
The OPT Visa is the biggest motivation for Indian students going to the US as this allows them to live in that country and find jobs for more tha two years and most of them get jobs during this period.
This is also necessary for Indians as after getting jobs, they recover a major part of the investment in education. This also gives the leeway and time to get an H1 B Visa.
Donald Trump Bats For H1 B Visa
Days after taking oath as 47th US President, Donald Trump he likes “very competent people” coming into the country.
Also Read: Will US Help India In Developing AI After Narendra Modi-Donald Trump Talks?
He also emphasised that he was not talking of only engineers, but people at all levels.
Earlier, Elon Musk advocated for the H1 B Visa as a means to recruit qualified and talented professionals.
However, after the America First and Make America Great Again rhetoric got shriller, public opinion turned against this scheme with more people demanding a stricter law.
20,000 Indians Face Deportation From US
The US ICE has identified more than 20,000 Indian migrants as illegal after they have lost their appeals. Some of them have been put in the custody.
After the first batch of 104 illegal Indian migrants landed at Amritsar air base with their hands cuffed and legs shackled, two more batches of more than 800 migrants will arrive in India soon.
As there was an uproar against the treatment meted out to desported migrants in India and the parties slammed the government for scoring brownie points, it was expected that PM Modi would raise the issue with President Trump.
It is not yet clear whether the issue figured in the discussion between the two leaders.
However, it is clear that hundreds of thousands of Indians living in the US face uncertainty.
