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US visa update: Indians on H-1B remain ‘stranded’, Google warns employees against international travel
The US government's new social media vetting rules, implemented on Dec 15, have led to chaos in visa processing, causing cancellations for many H-1B applicants.
The US government imposed new social media screening rules from December 15, which caused a great deal of chaos as visa applications faced protracted delays.
Several Indian institutes have reported multiple cancellations, delaying appointments till June 2026. Due to the recent situation, many H-1B visa holders have also been left “stranded” in India after coming back to the country to renew their paperwork.
H-1B visa woes: Stranded Indians
Over the past two weeks, hundreds (or possibly thousands) of highly trained workers faced appointments cancellation, as per the Washington Post. These H-1B visa holders returned to India in December to update their work permits, attorneys told the publication.
Their meetings were abruptly canceled by US consular authorities and rescheduled for several months later, leaving them “stranded” in the nation.
The State Department also provided updates in emails that the Washington Post reviewed, stating that the implementation of a new social media vetting procedure caused delays in interviews.
The Trump administration's adoption of a $100,000 fee for new applicants this year has raised concerns about the H-1B visa program, which is widely used by the US technology industry to hire skilled individuals from China and India. In addition, new limitations have made it necessary for candidates to reveal their social media accounts and have changed the selection procedure in a number of ways.
Google advises visa-holding employees to not travel abroad
Meanwhile, Google has advised its visa-dependent staff not to travel abroad. According to an internal memo that Business Insider was able to obtain, employees have been told not to leave the country owing to the prolonged processing delays for visas. The email, distributed by external counsel BAL Immigration Law, cautioned employees that they would “risk an extended stay outside the US” if they required a visa stamp for re-entry. The message also mentioned that some US embassies and consulates are presently experiencing delays of up to a year.
H-1B visa applicants and their H-4 relatives must now set all of their social media profiles to “public” as part of the US government's new screening and vetting procedures.
“To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for H-1B and their dependents (H-4), F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas are instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to ‘public’…Every visa adjudication is a national security decision,” stated the State Department in an order issued on December 15.
