Survey of 11,500+ H-1B visa holders at US tech companies finds discomfort with Trump's policies, with many feeling their place in the US is highly conditional
OneZero conducted a 10,000-person poll to shed light on the plight of H-1B workers — This article is part of Into the Valley …
H-1B holders at heavy users of the program — USCIS data later showed Amazon took the most H-1B visas every year from 2020 to 2024, with Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple in the top ten — face day-to-day precarity: their residency is tied to an employer whose sponsorship can vanish with a policy shift.
Tech companies must manage a workforce that the survey shows feels its place in the US is conditional, raising retention and mobility risk inside firms that depend on the visa pipeline.
Second-order effects
Employers respond by restricting movement — as later reported, companies tell visa-holding employees not to leave the US, effectively trading freedom of travel for job security.
Foreign buyers of talent step in: recruiters in the UK, Canada, and elsewhere court displaced workers during the clampdown, though skeptics doubt Trump's policies will spark a genuine tech boom abroad.
Third-order effects
If restriction persists, the structural effect is geographic dispersion of high-skilled tech labor — work migrates to Indian outsourcing firms and second-country hubs rather than concentrating in US offices.
Visa policy hardens into a standing competitive variable: US firms' hiring models, and workers' career calculus, now price in political risk rather than treating immigration status as stable.
The trend: US high-skilled immigration is shifting from a stable employment pipeline to a politically volatile one, pushing talent and work toward offshore alternatives.
EXCLUSIVE: H-1B visa workers at tech's biggest companies face discrimination. A survey by @ozm confirms that conditions can be stressful, precarious, and degrading for some workers on these visas. http://read.medium.com/jcsU5EX
A great bombshell report by @SarahNEmerson regarding the insidious H-1B visa program, & how major Silicon Valley companies like Google, Microsoft, EBay, Uber, etc., are using the visa program because it provides CHEAP INDENTURED employees who will remain obedient & not complain. …
This reporting is so important: for years friends of mine who are here on H1B visas have told me privately how they feel unable to really advocate for themselves because their whole ability to stay in the US is tied to their employment. https://twitter.com/...
This is something I've tweeted about before because a member of my immediate family has experienced this kind of discrimination. Heads up, it doesn't just happen in tech companies. It happens in all industries. https://twitter.com/...
H1B workers rely on their companies to stay in the US. This means that they are more precarious & more likely to stay out of trouble. This is why tech companies are so willing to hire H1B workers. It's not just about multiculturalism. It's about hiring a more docile workforce. ht…
In discussions of inclusion in tech , H-1Bs are overlooked while being systematically underpaid and trapped by employers. The system is broken. Without H1-B reform, the US risks losing skilled tech talent altogether as other hubs become increasingly attractive. https://twitter.co…
Survey of tech workers on H-1B visas says many feel discriminated against by their companies: “Foreign laborers who enter the program also report feeling like an underclass, with stressful working conditions and discrimination due to their visa status.” https://onezero.medium.com…
In Silicon Valley, sometimes the best and brightest are enslaved by H1B visas in a green card catch 22. Mediocre western bosses, brilliant talent, indentured in a way. https://twitter.com/...
H-1B employees from India are treated and perceived very, very differently from employees from the UK, Canada, Australia who are also on visas. https://twitter.com/...
I spent the last few months reporting this story about the lives of foreign workers who, because of their visa status, are indentured to the world's biggest technology companies — Amazon, Facebook, Google, Uber, Microsoft, and others https://onezero.medium.com/...
“Right now, no more than 7% of green cards can be issued to citizens of any one country, meaning Indian H-1B workers, for instance, are disproportionately faced with decades — even centuries — long backlogs.” https://twitter.com/...
“I believe that H-1B employees tend to tolerate more bullshit from managers because they cannot just rage-quit.” - 100% from Lyft said they felt at least some additional pressure due to their status - 32% from PayPal perceived discrimination “very often” https://onezero.medium.co…
“The lottery system is ineffective, Kerr says, and too often the program is used to recruit lower-skilled workers at a discount.” Great reporting on H-1B visas from @SarahNEmerson https://onezero.medium.com/...
There are many reasons I wouldn't work/live in the US, but the idea of my entire life being dependent on a job, because of a visa, is the one that puts me off most https://onezero.medium.com/...
I've never read a more comprehensive look at H1B visas than @SarahNEmerson's story today. Responses from 10,000 H1B visa holders in tech. Yes, 10,000 — not a typo. https://onezero.medium.com/...