Shashi Tharoor says H-1B visa payment hike pushed by Donald Trump’s home politics

Days after United States President Donald Trump signed a proclamation underneath which a $100,000 payment should be paid for each new H-1B visa petition filed after September 21, Congress chief and Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor referred to as it a call taken to appease Mr. Trump’s “so-called MAGA” supporters.

Speaking to ANI on Monday (September 22, 2025), Mr. Tharoor talked about that the sudden hike in H-1B visa charges is about America’s home politics and the President is making an attempt to realize help of the anti-immigration base. It is price noting that the U.S. legislative elections are set for November this yr. “Again, the motives are principally pushed by home politics. Trump believes, and the folks round him have instructed him, that the straightforward H-1B has meant that lots of Americans who deserve a better wage from the identical corporations are being bypassed by Indians who will settle for a decrease wage,” Mr. Tharoor mentioned in an interview with ANI.

Mr. Tharoor linked the transfer to the broader political local weather within the U.S. “Today, the dominant political forces of the so-called MAGA motion are very brazenly anti-immigrants, and notably seen immigrants, folks of a distinct color who might be noticed as not of the white ethnic mainstream,” he mentioned.

The former Union Minister defined that Mr. Trump’s supporters see Indian professionals as undercutting American staff, who work for a lesser wage than the typical American. “An Indian techie who comes and works for sixty thousand {dollars} a yr is taking away, in accordance with Trump’s supporters, jobs from an American who wouldn’t work for lower than eighty-five or ninety thousand {dollars} a yr,” he mentioned.

According to Mr. Tharoor, the choice to lift visa charges to as excessive as $100,000 was meant to make low- and mid-level jobs “unviable”. “So solely the high-end, actually fascinating, irreplaceable prime people who find themselves price it for an organization to spend 100 thousand {dollars}, solely they are going to come,” he added.

The Congress MP additionally added that the measure could ultimately backfire on the U.S. economic system. “The apparent resolution shall be to outsource the job. What was once achieved in America can now be achieved both in multinational firm items in Europe or of their international functionality centres in India,” he added. He identified that after these elevated charges, there’s a probability that Indian tech staff should find yourself doing the identical work for American corporations, solely from India as a substitute of the U.S.

Raising concern for Indian IT corporations, Mr. Tharoor mentioned the brand new payment construction would make many contracts unviable for Indian tech corporations. “We can’t pay 100 thousand {dollars} per individual to go off and do a contract which is definitely a low-end contract,” he mentioned.