In Hyderabad’s Ameerpet, often referred to as the ‘United States of Ameerpet’, the silence is deafening. Once a throbbing hub of software dreams, its triangular atrium now wears a deserted look. Colourful billboards promising six-figure salaries glare down at empty pavements. Even the walls marked with stern warnings “do not sit on walls/ grilles/ steps” stand unchallenged. The hum of samosa sellers, tea vendors, job consultants and laptop repairers, once inseparable from the churn of students and tutors, has faded into a mournful quiet.
It is a silence heavy with broken ambition. For years, Ameerpet thrived on a singular fantasy: the H-1B visa. But on September 19, that fantasy collapsed. From the Oval Office in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation that shook the foundations of Hyderabad’s software coaching economy. With new restrictions and a staggering $100,000 fee, the H-1B, once the golden gateway to the American dream, slammed shut.
The fallout is written on the faces of students like Umesh B., a freshly minted B.Tech graduate from Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology, now learning Java Fullstack. “I just want a job. I used to dream about going to the US when I was young. Now a regular job here that pays ₹30,000 a month for a beginner like me is good enough,” the 21-year-old says.
Beside him, two friends scan signboards promising jobs after a learning stint: two-month paid internships which, in theory, lead to salaries between ₹3 lakh and ₹6 lakh a year. But the numbers tell their own story. Salaries once dreamt of as monthly paychecks are now realities as annual incomes.
Inside the rows of coaching centres, the mood is equally grim. “There is fewer footfalls and less bustle as all the courses are being conducted online. But after Donald Trump became U.S. President, whatever limited demand was there has also disappeared. Now, the decision on H-1B will mean even fewer applicants,” says Sandeep, who works with an institute named Visualpath that offers courses in coding, DevOps, AI, cloud and 35 other flavours of software.
The ripple effects travelled fast. On an Emirates flight from San Francisco to Dubai, several anxious passengers deboarded after hearing the news, delaying departure by three hours. In Boston, dorm rooms buzzed with disbelief as Indian students scrolled through their phone screens, recalculating what this meant for their future.
The news jolted 22-year-old Rohini Sharma (name changed), a master’s student in Boston, out of her routine. For months, she had been looking forward to her winter break in December, and putting away small amounts of money each week to book a round trip to her hometown, Hyderabad. Her father had already started planning a family outing. Her youngest sister was waiting to go shopping. Rohini herself would daydream of walking into her mother’s kitchen again and relishing home-cooked food. All this, after more than a year of clipped phone calls and video chats across time zones with her parents and three sisters.
That night, after returning from her part-time job to her shared apartment, she planned to check ticket prices. But the news alert on her phone left her reeling. “At first, I did not fully understand the implications. But once I began reading the details, panic set in,” she recalls.
Like thousands of international students, Rohini is in the U.S. on an F-1 visa, which allows her to pursue studies for two years. Her hopes were pinned on the Optional Practical Training (OPT), a work authorisation programme that lets international students gain hands-on experience in their chosen field after graduation.
“For most people, OPT lasts 12 months. But since I am in a STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics] programme, I can apply for an extension of 24 months, giving me up to three years in total,” she explains.
Also Read | Why STEM isn’t just for Science students anymore
The real challenge, however, comes after OPT ends. To continue living and working in the U.S., students like Rohini must secure an H-1B visa, the specialty occupation visa that has long been the gateway for Indian talent. She knew it was already a lottery system; qualifications and jobs didn’t guarantee success. But now, with Trump’s proclamation, employers themselves might hesitate. “The cost is higher, the rules are stricter and the uncertainty greater. Companies may simply prefer to hire people who do not need this visa at all. For us, that means our chances of building a career here shrink,” she says.
The doors are closing
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had already made it official: “We have received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap and the 20,000 H-1B visa U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year 2026.”
Numbers that once seemed abstract now carried weighty implications. In 1998, the U.S. issued/ reissued visas to 25,292 Indians, a figure that hovered around 25,000 annually until 2018. Then came the COVID crash: only 7,771 visas went to Indian nationals in 2021. By 2024, the number had bounced back to 40,698, according to data from the U.S. State Department.
While Rohini sat at her desk in Boston frantically scrolling through explainers and news updates, halfway across the world in Hyderabad, it was the middle of the night. By the time her parents woke up, news channels and websites were already buzzing with headlines about the announcement. Her father quickly dialled her number, while her mother stood nearby with worry etched across her face. They had expected to discuss her travel plans, her coursework and gifts she might want to bring home. Instead, the conversation turned to visa categories, legal fine print and what the future might hold if the rules truly came into effect.
By the end of the day, the family had exchanged dozens of calls and WhatsApp messages, trying to make sense of a proclamation that had disrupted not only Rohini’s immediate plans but that of several other students.
Questions over investment in education surfaced in other corners of the country. Srinath Reddy (name changed), a fresh BBA graduate from Hyderabad, had been planning to head to the U.S. for MBA education after a few-months hiatus.
“I have been in touch with counsellors ever since the H-1B announcement came out, and most of them keep reassuring me that there is no problem for students like us. They say the new rules are aimed at employers and will not directly affect those who go on F-1 visa. Technically, that means I can still do my master’s, finish my studies, and get OPT, which gives me the chance to work in the U.S. for a year or up to three years if it is a STEM course,” he says.
But Srinath’s optimism carries a caveat. What worries him is what comes after that. “My friends who are already in the U.S. are saying that even during OPT, companies may hesitate to hire because they know that sponsoring an H-1B visa now comes with much higher costs. That uncertainty makes you think twice about the investment you are putting into foreign education. We are told that student visas are safe, but the real anxiety is about what happens when it is time to find a job and move from OPT to H-1B. With so many unanswered questions, it feels like we are stepping into an unpredictable situation where everything depends on whether employers are still willing to take the risk,” he adds.
Also Read |Trump’s H-1B fee hike: Types of U.S. work visas for Indians
Jobs being erased
Amid the uncertainty and fear comes the word of Venkat Madala of Ciberts, a Hyderabad-based tech firm specialising in cybersecurity and software solutions. “Most jobs that required people on site with an H-1B visa have disappeared. Zaroorat nahi hai (they are not needed). AI is doing many of the mundane jobs that once required people on site. With DevOps and SysOps bringing automation at every level, many jobs are deleted at various layers. In this scenario, Trump’s decision has only a limited impact on India. The bigger problem is unemployment,” he says, tracing how the IT industry has been pummeled by COVID, the rise of process automation, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
This has not happened overnight though, argues Madala. “What a senior programmer once took a year to do is now being done in five to seven minutes. The entire application, automated testing and the push to production takes very little time,” he explains.
He lists AI-driven tools like Cursor, Lovable, Replit and Rocket that allow anyone with functional English to develop user interface, user experience, frontend, backend and even upload apps without technical expertise. These disappearing jobs, ironically, are what Trump cited while pushing for the H-1B overhaul.
The numbers bear him out. “…Among college graduates aged 22 to 27, computer science and computer engineering majors are facing some of the highest unemployment rates in the United States at 6.1% and 7.5%, respectively — more than double the unemployment rates of recent biology and art history graduates. Recent data reveals that unemployment rates among workers in computer occupations jumped from an average of 1.98% in 2019 to 3.02% in 2025,” he had said.
Meanwhile, Ankit Jain, executive director of One Window Overseas Education Pvt. Ltd., offers a detailed perspective on the new regulation. The introduction of the $100,000 fee, he says, is “disturbing for candidates who are potentially applying for H-1B or are currently on it”. He explains that many companies may be reluctant to spend that kind of money on employees who are not considered indispensable, potentially affecting job security.
But Jain also points to a silver lining: the new rules could push candidates to sharpen their skills and demonstrate their value to employers. “If you perform exceptionally, companies will not hesitate to retain you, because hiring someone else who doesn’t contribute as much is not worth the savings,” he notes.
At the same time, he criticises the rollout of the regulation as hasty and lacking consultation, leaving students, employees, employers and educational institutions dissatisfied. Yet, he acknowledges the broader intent: to curb misuse by consultancies and organisations that have previously exploited the system to place employees in the U.S. without genuine job roles.
“The idea is to ensure that only genuine talent makes it through. It will look like a bold move in the beginning, but the long-term goal is to make the system more effective and fair,” he avers.
Jain also highlights the need to maintain the reputation of Indian students abroad. “Earlier, there were instances where a few students misused the system, which affected perceptions of all Indian students. It is important that students represent themselves and their country well,” he asserts.
Looking for other pastures
Jain cautions against panic and urges students to explore opportunities beyond the U.S. — from Ireland and Germany to Australia, the UK and France, countries that offer both student- and job-friendly environments. German Ambassador to India, Philipp Ackermann even took to social media on September 23 to draw an analogy: “Our migration policy works a bit like a German car. It’s reliable. It’s modern. It’s predictable. It will go in a straight line with no zig-zag.”
For the thousands of youth crowding Ameerpet’s coaching alleys, once gateways to Silicon Valley, such promises from Europe may sound like the new American dream. Whether Hyderabad’s students recalibrate their ambitions towards Berlin, Dublin or Sydney, it is becoming increasingly evident that the H-1B is no longer the sole ladder to success.
