A San Francisco-based techie from Kolkata stares at uncertainty over his return to a house he owns in the US amidst social media checks for H-1B visa holders by the Donald Trump-led government.
He is afraid he may not be able to make it back to his home — a property he bought after hustling for years on foreign soil — for at least a year.
“We are all scared of losing our jobs. We have a house in the US that we can’t get back to,” said the techie who is now stranded in south Kolkata.
As per the new mandate, H-1B visa holders must undergo social media screening for visa renewal. The change in the process, however, has led to delays.
The situation has escalated to a point where many American tech giants have started asking their employees to return to the US before their visas expire.
Meanwhile, confusion and chaos haunts the H-1B visa holders in Kolkata as most of them fail to see a feasible solution to their problems amid a lack of clarity over visa screening and renewal.
Many H-1B visa holders fear job loss, financial troubles and prolonged separation from family. Some even have pets in the US, who would be left unattended in their absence.
For a California-based working professional in his mid-thirties, a wedding leave is likely to get extended into nearly a year of uncertainty, with his well-paying job now at risk.
“I came to India for my January 2026 wedding, but I am now stranded till 2027, with my job at risk since my employer won’t allow remote work,” he said.
The US State Department has shared a statement stating that social media vetting was aimed at addressing “the abuse of the H-1B program while still permitting companies to hire the best of the best temporary foreign workers”.
“We encourage applicants to apply as early as they can and anticipate additional processing time for these visa classifications,” the statement added.
Under the expanded social media vetting policy, visa applicants are required to set their online privacy settings to public to facilitate review. Consular officers may examine public posts, professional profiles and other online activity, a change widely reported to be contributing to longer processing times and appointment backlogs.
Previously, such online presence checks were largely limited to student and exchange visitor visa categories. Similar delays in student visa interviews were reported earlier this year.
Out of the five US consulates in India — New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad — H-1B visa interviews are conducted in mainly two (Chennai and Hyderabad), increasing bottlenecks.
With their return to the US uncertain, the affected visa holders have formed several groups on messaging apps over the past few days, where they are frantically sharing information and searching for possible recourse.
The uncertainty has also fostered an unusual camaraderie among those stranded, with applicants coordinating efforts to monitor appointment availability. Since frequent logins to the visa portal risk account lockouts for up to 24 hours, members have begun dividing up “slot lookout” duties and alerting each other whenever interview slots briefly open up.
Multiple applicants told My Kolkata that they have written to the Ministry of External Affairs, seeking intervention, but are yet to receive any response.
For those caught in the disruption, the consequences are immediate and personal.
Families with children have also been impacted. “My son’s school starts in January, but we are stranded here till summer because of rescheduling,” said a visa holder.
Many affected applicants are now attempting to secure visa renewal appointments under emergency quota provisions. However, they say even these slots are scarce, with available dates often at least one to two months away.
“There’s options for expedited appointments, but even those slots are few and months away,” a visa holder said.
Several applicants also reported technical issues with the appointment booking system, saying the servers frequently crash during login attempts. In some cases, failed logins have resulted in applicants losing one of their limited rescheduling attempts, further narrowing their options.
According to an April 2025 report by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, India accounts for 71 per cent of all H-1B visa holders, making the delays particularly consequential for Indian professionals.
In July, the US State Department announced that H-1B holders and their H-4 dependents would no longer be able to renew visas in countries they are nationals of from 2 September, 2025.
On 19 September, US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation imposing a USD 1,00,000 fee on new H-1B applications, applicable to petitions filed after September 21, including those entered into the 2026 lottery.