Indian-American investor Vivek Wadhwa said the US should absolutely end the H-1B visa program as it is doing more harm than good to both the US and India. Wadhwa said the visa program once played an important role in making America the world leader in technology and innovation but now the system is badly corrupted. Wadhwa put out a lengthy post on X explaining why he turned against the visa program. "Unethical body shops learned to game it. Green-card backlogs stretched from years into decades, leaving talented immigrants trapped in immigration limbo and effectively tied to employers because changing jobs could jeopardize everything they had waited years for," Wadhwa posted. The post came weeks after Wadhwa told podcaster Mark Halperin that around 25% of H-1B visa holders come to the US with fake degrees because they are hired by "bodyshops" that inflate the CVs of these candidates. Bodyshops in tech parlance refer to staffing companies that recruit foreign people on behalf of tech companies and manage their payrolls. "Unethical body shops learned to game it. Green-card backlogs stretched from years into decades, leaving talented immigrants trapped in immigration limbo and effectively tied to employers because changing jobs could jeopardize everything they had waited years for," Wadhwa said.
H-1B so broken that patching won't work
The second Donald Trump administration brought several changes to the visa program making it difficult to get an H-1B now but Wadhwa believed that the system was so broken that no patching could help it. "Then came the ugly politics, xenophobia, and race-baiting. At some point, a system becomes so broken that patching it no longer makes sense. Congress should end H-1B and design a new skilled-immigration system for the future, one that welcomes exceptional scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, researchers, and others who genuinely add to America's innovation and competitiveness, while shutting out labor arbitrage and abuse," he said.
Set up a real startup visa
Wadhwa said now is the time to abolish the H-1B visa program instead of blaming anyone and giving any excuse; and replace this with a real startup visa that allos employment generating companies to come to America. "Americans don’t hate Indians and they are not racists; they rightfully hate the abuse by unethical Indians of a system that was meant to uplift America," he said. "America should undoubtedly compete aggressively for the world's best talent, but give that talent freedom and dignity rather than decades of uncertainty. And it really should be the best talent, people who build competitiveness and create jobs—not take these away from older Americans. This is why we must have a real startup visa that allows employment generating companies to come to America. Everyone will support this if it isn’t subject to corruption and abuse," Wadhwa said.
