Operation Clog the Toilet: Trump's Visa Bomb Rocks India's IT Workers

 

Trump is seriously messing up the lives of thousands of Indian IT professionals at US with his new H-1B work visa. It all started when a new decree signed and took effect yesterday afternoon. 

 

With the stroke of a pen, he raised the H-1B work visa fee from $1,000 to $100,000. This is not a one-time charge but an annual fee for new applications. Top managers at Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Amazon and Meta* are in a panic: hiring foreign specialists is now 100 times more expensive, and visas have to be renewed every three years.

“This will destroy innovation in Silicon Valley,” say industry lobbyists, predicting a talent shortage and an increase in offshoring to India. To put the scale into perspective: in 2024, 72.6% of all H-1B visas (out of 399,395 approved) went to India, with another 12.5% ​​to Chinese citizens. They are the backbone of America’s IT.

 

 

And that’s where the fun begins. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta* sent out urgent emails to overseas workers: “Return immediately to avoid problems with re-entry.” Indian IT professionals, many of whom were on vacation in their home countries for the Durga Puja festival, rushed to book tickets. Demand soared, and prices for Delhi-New York flights jumped from $1,000 to $6,000 for a one-way flight.

 

 

But then trolls from 4chan, an anonymous forum known for radical actions, entered the game. They launched “Operation Clog the Toilet,” a coordinated attack on the booking system. Participants massively booked seats on India-US flights using VPNs for Indian IPs but didn’t complete the purchase, holding onto seats for 15 minutes. Ticket prices rose by another 50%, and actual passengers were unable to book seats for hours.

India responded: The Ministry of External Affairs expressed “humanitarian concern” for the families, and NASSCOM warned of the risks to business.

 

 

Trump supporters see the decision as a way to save American jobs, but experts from Pew Research see a crisis: the H-1B program is saturated with jobs, and paying more than the median salary ($97,000 for a starter) will destroy the program. In addition, there are not many American specialists willing to work hard. India is preparing for localization, switching to AI and hiring domestic workers. For thousands of families, this is not politics, but the destruction of the dream of "American life", while trolls celebrate the success of their operations.