Stop H-1B visa, give startup visa: Indian-American investor Vivek Wadhwa says Americans rightfully hate unethical Indians

Prominent Indian-American investor Vivek Wadhwa is calling for the complete abolition of the H-1B visa program, arguing it has become deeply corrupted and is detrimental to both the United States and India. Wadhwa, who once benefited from the visa program that brought him to the U.S., now contends that it is being exploited by "unethical body shops" that submit candidates with fraudulent degrees and inflated resumes.

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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.

He highlighted the severe green-card backlogs, which can stretch for decades, trapping talented immigrants in a state of uncertainty. This limbo effectively ties them to employers, as changing jobs could jeopardize their long-awaited immigration status. Wadhwa believes the system is so fundamentally broken that mere patching is insufficient, especially in light of what he describes as "ugly politics, xenophobia, and race-baiting" surrounding the program.

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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.

Instead of the H-1B, Wadhwa proposes the establishment of a "startup visa." This new system, he argues, should focus on attracting exceptional scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who genuinely contribute to American innovation and competitiveness. He stressed that Americans do not hate Indians but rightfully resent the abuse of a system designed to benefit the U.S. by unethical individuals. Wadhwa advocates for a system that grants freedom and dignity to the world's best talent, ensuring they create jobs rather than displace American workers.

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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.