As India contributes the highest number of H-1B visa holders to the US, any change in the H-1B visa rule affects Indi first. The social media vetting introduced in December 2025 pushed H-1B interview dates by months with thousands of H-1B visa holders getting stuck in India as they went to their home countries to get their visa stamping renewed, but all dates got blocked for months. Two major changes brought about the huge backlog: first, the stamping has to be done in one’s home country; second, all visa stamp renewals will undergo social media vetting.The issue has been raised through diplomatic channels as well.Recently, during a roundtable meeting organised by the New York Foreign Press Centre, State Department Spokesperson Tommy Pigott told news agency PTI that these visa rules have not been changed to target India but these are global visa laws that are being implemented.“When it comes to visas… what we had here for a long time with previous administrations going back was inconsistent application of visa law. That is no longer the case. We are consistently applying visa law across the board. I think that will offer clarity,” Pigott said.“There are no visa laws that target India. These are global visa laws that are being implemented with clarity, clear instructions that are being applied across the board,” he said.He added that when it comes to visa policy in general, “we are of course going to work with other countries to allow people to enter the country that are needed for trade and investment, to work, and there are numerous examples of that happening with different bilateral partners across the world.” “We also are clear, as in any country, that if you are going to create a job in the US, that we want to make sure that Americans have opportunities there, and every country has a similar mentality,” he said, adding that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stressed that each country pursues its own national interests.“Of course, we’re going to facilitate and allow ways that people need to come in to facilitate investment, to train workers, and make sure that visa policies are in place to allow that to happen. We’re applying the laws consistently across the board. There are no visa laws that target India specifically.“We are going to make sure that when we have visa policies in place, that while we facilitate the entry of workers into the United States, we want to make sure, as any country would, that Americans in America, or name your country and their own citizens, have the opportunities of that investment as well,” he said.
