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Indian woman claims H-1B visa got 'cancelled' at Abu Dhabi preclearance: 'Overstayed in India'
H-1B holders claims her visa was cancelled at Abu Dhabi preclearance over remote work from India.
An H-1B visa holder has claimed that her passport was stamped “cancelled and withdrawn” during US preclearance at Abu Dhabi International Airport, leaving her stranded and unable to return to her job in the United States.
In a now-deleted Reddit post that has since gone viral on X, the woman said she works full-time in the US and had travelled to India in November to celebrate her daughter’s first birthday. She said there were no initial issues with visa stamping as their appointments had been scheduled before December 12, 2025, before the US visa chaos began.
According to her post, she and her husband completed their H-1B visa stamping on December 12. They were scheduled to fly back to the US in January. While her husband was cleared at the US preclearance facility in Abu Dhabi without any trouble, she was flagged for review and sent for “secondary inspection”.
The woman detailed the questions she faced during preclearance. Officials asked her how long she had stayed in India and whether she had continued working while there. She said she had remained in India for two months, describing the period as partly vacation and partly work.
She was then asked to prove that working remotely from India was authorised under her Labour Condition Application (LCA). According to her, her LCA did not include provisions permitting overseas remote work.
The Redditor said she was informed that she had “overstayed” in India and that receiving payment while working from India for a US company was against US law. “They cancelled my visa and stamped ‘Cancelled and Withdrawn’ on my passport. I was told that I would need to go for visa stamping again. However, there are currently no visa appointment slots available,” she wrote.
She added that her company’s immigration attorney had advised her that there is no explicit rule prohibiting remote work from India while employed by a US company and suggested she apply for stamping again. However, with no appointment slots currently available, she said she was extremely stressed and unsure about her next steps.
Notably, her post comes amid broader anxiety among H-1B workers. Hundreds were left stranded in India after the US State Department began enhanced social media vetting in December 2025, leading to large-scale rescheduling of visa appointments. While some US companies allowed employees to work remotely from India during the disruption, the legal clarity around such arrangements remains a grey area.
(Also Read: 32-year-old laid off in US moves back to Hyderabad, says 'It feels like I’ve gone back 9 years')
Social media reactions
The Reddit post quickly gained traction on X, with users debating the risks of international travel on work visas.
One user wrote, “YYou are right. But that is a sad way to exist - being unable to travel outside the US. What next? Being scared to travel across state lines?”
“You should never admit working in a country you haven’t been authorised to work in if you work in the US. That’s an understanding between you and your manager,” commented another.
“The most important lesson from this is: if you can, ALWAYS go through preclearance, like Abu Dhabi, Dublin or Canada. If this had happened at, say, JFK, it would be overnight detention at the least. Overland could be weeks,” wrote one user.
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
