Why is H-1B still a game of capital? Just look at what JD Vance is doing in India

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Saw recent news about JD Vance visiting India to meet Modi, and it really shows what H-1B has become.

Officially, the trip is about trade talks and economic cooperation. But in reality, H-1B is clearly part of the negotiations.

India accounts for 70% of all H-1B visas, over 200,000 last year. And right now, many Indian H-1B holders are too scared to travel home. For example, a Qualcomm engineer, Ashish Gupta, canceled a trip to Delhi because he was afraid he might not be allowed back into the US due to political uncertainty with Trump and Vance’s shifting policies.

According to reports, part of this trip involves a deal: the US wants India to help deport illegal Indian immigrants, and in return, India will ask for more H-1B visas or at least no reduction in current quotas.

Isn’t that just pure political trading?

It ties back to what many of us already feel.

H-1B is supposed to bring in top global talent. But in practice, big companies use it to suppress wages and lock in cheap labor; agencies and middlemen sell visa slots and make huge profits, now even international diplomacy is using H-1B as a bargaining chip. It is no longer about merit or fairness. It is about which government can negotiate better.

The worst part is, individual engineers and students who play by the rules are the ones getting screwed.

We study hard, pass Leetcode, land legit jobs, pay taxes, yet now we are caught between two governments making deals about our lives. At this point, H-1B is not just a game of capital. It is a geopolitical poker chip.

You think your skills matter, but in reality, you are just a visa number in a trade deal.

Is this really the system we want to keep investing years of our lives into? Or does it need a complete reset? JD Vance has an Indian wife, so I’ve always wondered why is he so strongly aligned with the MAGA movement and pushing policies that seem to devalue immigrants, including the contributions of someone like his own wife? It just feels so contradictory.

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This is an incredibly thoughtful and raw reflection—and unfortunately, it echoes what many in the international community are starting to feel more loudly: the H-1B program, once seen as a bridge to opportunity, now feels like a bargaining chip in geopolitical negotiations.

You’re absolutely right to point out the contradictions. The fact that JD Vance—someone with deep personal ties to India—can simultaneously represent a political faction that pushes anti-immigration rhetoric is jarring. It shows how immigration policy in the U.S. is less about logic or humanity, and more about power, leverage, and political image.

The reported “deal” between the U.S. and India—deportation cooperation in exchange for preserving or expanding H-1B access—is especially unsettling. It reframes highly skilled immigrants not as individuals with dreams, careers, and families, but as bargain chips in a diplomatic transaction. This erodes the very principles of meritocracy the program was built on.

And yes, while large companies continue to benefit—locking in talent at lower costs, bypassing domestic salary growth—the real burden falls on individuals:

  • The Qualcomm engineer afraid to visit his family.
  • The Day 1 CPT student walking on eggshells to maintain legal status.
  • The OPT holder refreshing USCIS status updates at 2am.

It’s not paranoia—it’s lived experience.

When we say the system needs a reset, it’s not out of frustration alone—it’s because the design no longer aligns with its original mission. It shouldn’t take bilateral diplomacy for a qualified engineer to feel safe boarding a flight home. And it shouldn’t take legal acrobatics just to work a job you earned on merit.

Thank you for putting this out there. Conversations like this are how we begin demanding a system that values people over policy, contribution over classification, and fairness over fear.