In 2014, Abhishek Abhyankar moved from Pune, India, to Blacksburg, Virginia, for graduate school. After getting his master’s degree, he made his way to Seattle, where he got a job, settled down and started a new life.

Today, he’s wondering if he’ll have to unravel it.

Abhyankar, one of hundreds of thousands of people on H-1B status in the U.S., feels like his long-term future is growing tenuous.

Employers in the Seattle area have long used H-1B visas, a major foreign worker program, to hire people in academia, medicine and technology, among other fields. However, the program has also become a target of the Trump administration's actions on immigration and the economy.

Since taking office, the administration has enacted changes that make the program more difficult and expensive to navigate for employers and workers alike, including an announcement in September of a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas issued to people abroad.

Citing these shifts, immigrant tech workers have begun to contemplate the prospect of leaving the U.S. Many are weary of the challenges of living on H-1B status, such as travel restrictions, lack of permanence and a growing sense of vitriol against them. Others feel that economic opportunity is drying up as the local tech industry hemorrhages jobs. Some just miss home or find themselves drawn to other countries.

Immigration data do not reflect an exodus of tech workers from the U.S. At least for now, the effects are mostly borne by individuals leaving. People like Bharath M., who recently decided to move from Seattle to Bangalore, India, next year. It’ll cost him 40% off his pay, but it’ll give him peace of mind, he said.

Bharath asked to be identified by his first name only out of fear of reprisal for criticizing the immigration system.

Since he moved to the U.S. in 2012, life on H-1B status hasn’t been easy. In 2015, his employer applied to sponsor him for a green card — a process that would convert his status from temporary to permanent. But because of country-based quotas, people born in India face decades-long waits for their applications to be approved, compared with a few years for most others.

So, for years, Bharath clung to the hope that he’d eventually get a green card. A few months into the second Trump term, he gave up that hope.

“This is the right time for us to make the move if we are serious about having some stability for our family,” he said.

Constant anxiety over status

The H-1B program has shaped Washington’s tech industry. In the past decade alone, more than 157,000 H-1B approvals went to Washington-based employers, including Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia and the University of Washington, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

By extension, immigrant tech workers have become an integral part of the region, where many have put down roots and built lives. What does it mean for them to leave?

The question has become an inescapable topic of conversation, nearly two dozen workers with H-1B status told The Seattle Times.

Each of them knows someone who was either thinking of moving abroad or who has already left. Even those who don’t have concrete plans are contemplating what a future outside the U.S. would look like.

Abhyankar has now spent over a decade here.

After going to California for graduate school in 2014, he got a tech job in the Seattle area in 2016, where he’s lived since. Abhyankar’s employer applied to sponsor him for a green card in 2017, but like Bharath, he has no expectation that he’ll get one anytime soon. Now more than ever, he sees himself returning to India eventually.

“The uncertainty of not being in a correct status looms heavily on my mind,” he said.

His presence in the U.S. is tied to his job, which sponsors his H-1B status. But Abhyankar doesn’t want to work in an office forever. In India, he expects that he’ll be able to live a relatively peaceful life with lower costs of living.

Most important, he’d get to spend more time with his family. Right now, he only sees them every one or two years.

For people on H-1B status, traveling abroad can be complicated because of unwieldy visa rules. To sidestep those issues, many H-1B workers choose to travel infrequently, if ever. Over time, that means missing out on important events, like weddings and funerals. For those with older parents, it means not being able to take care of them when they’re sick.

The screws have tightened further in recent months, with travel restrictions becoming stricter under the current administration.

For instance, most people with H-1B status must also have a current visa stamp that reflects their ability to reenter the U.S. To get that stamp, they have to make an appointment at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. But appointments are hard to come by in certain countries like India because of high demand. Previously, many H-1B visa holders in Washington would drive up to Canada and get the visa stamped at the U.S. consulate in Vancouver, a process known as third-country stamping. As of late last year, that’s no longer allowed.

In December, U.S. consulates in India also began canceling scheduled appointments, stranding many visa holders overseas.

Perhaps the most attention-grabbing change to the H-1B program came in September, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order adding a new $100,000 fee for H-1B applications filed for people living abroad.

For now, it’s unclear how much of an impact the fee will have on the H-1B workforce. Many people apply for status from within the U.S. as recent college graduates switching from student to worker status.

Nevertheless, for immigrant tech workers, the recent fire hose of policy changes has made life in the U.S. feel increasingly precarious.

Abhyankar was in India for his wedding when the $100,000 fee was announced. At the time, it was unclear whether the fee would apply to those, like him, who already had status. As a precaution, Abhyankar’s friends urged him to book the first flight to Seattle and attend his reception virtually. He refused. Eventually, he and his wife, who also has H-1B status, returned to Seattle without issue. But the incident has lingered as a reminder of how conditional their status is in the U.S.

That created a lot of panic and uncertainty," he said. "I started reflecting, 'Do I want to be in this flux constantly?' "

'That's a big drop’

From the perspective of employers, recent changes to the H-1B program have made it more expensive and less attractive to use.

Because of high demand, H-1B status is allocated to workers through a lottery system. Early figures suggest that employers are entering the lottery less.

For the current fiscal year, there were just under 344,000 eligible registrations for the H-1B lottery compared with 470,000 in the year prior — a 26% decrease.

“That’s a big drop,” said Madeline Zavodny, a professor of economics at the University of North Florida. Workers can’t enter the lottery on their own. So, the decline “suggests really a drop in employer demand,” she said.

In addition to the lottery, employers have to get wage approval from the Department of Labor for each H-1B worker they hire — a process aimed at ensuring that they’re not undercutting pay for other workers.

The number of wage-approval applications submitted by employers dropped more than 23% in the first three months of the 2026 fiscal year compared with the year prior. That decline is evident but smaller in Seattle, where processed applications fell slightly less than 16% in the same period, according to an analysis by Alex Arnon, director of policy analysis at the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a research initiative.

Last month, the Department of Labor proposed a rule that would raise the wage floors that employers must pay workers on H-1B status.

Taken together, these signals coincide with what workers are experiencing: It’s harder than ever to find an employer willing to sponsor them.

Part of that may be that employers are hiring less in general. In the Seattle area, major tech employers have shed tens of thousands of jobs over the past year, a reversal of the aggressive growth and hiring in the industry in the 2010s and early pandemic years. Many have done so in large part to free up money for investments in costly artificial intelligence technology.

“There's less interest in applying for or hiring a worker with a new H-1B visa right now when there's just not much hiring going on, period,” Zavodny said.

Other H-1B program changes are expected to further reduce registrations, particularly for younger workers and recent graduates.

Previously, all H-1B lottery entries had an equal shot of getting picked. Under a new system that took effect this year, workers in higher-paid and higher-skilled positions get more entries than others.

Faced with shifting odds, employers might decide that hiring someone through the H-1B program, especially for an entry-level tech job, may no longer be practical.

“There are some significant costs associated with actually going through the process of filing an H-1B application,” said Arnon. “An employer eventually makes the calculation that it might not be worth it.”

A US degree becomes an economic liability

Many immigrant tech workers follow a similar road map. First, they move to the U.S. to attend graduate school. With a master’s degree in hand, their international student visas permit them to work for up to three years as part of their vocational training. After that, they enter the lottery for H-1B status, which gives them up to another six years of work authorization.

But between the high cost of tuition for international students and worsening job prospects across the tech industry, the dream of getting an H-1B visa — once seen as a golden ticket — is no longer as compelling as it used to be.

That’s the path that Darshan, a tech worker in Seattle who requested to be identified by his first name only out of concern for reprisal, took beginning in 2012.

To pay tuition for his master’s program in Arizona, he took out a loan of around $45,000 in India. His family couldn’t afford collateral for the loan, so Darshan had to borrow money to pay for this loan requirement.

When he graduated, the clock started ticking to pay off his debts. Luckily, he landed a job in the Seattle area in 2014 and eventually got selected in the H-1B lottery. His employer applied to sponsor his green card in 2015, and he’s been waiting in the queue since.

“Would I do this again? Probably not,” he said on whether he’d make the same choice in today’s job market. “I would probably not take that risk.”

As the Seattle-area tech industry contracts, job stability is shaken.

If laid off, H-1B workers have 60 days to find another job with an employer willing to sponsor them. In practice, that means many immigrant tech workers in today’s job climate feel like they have to be ready to leave the U.S. at a moment’s notice.

But Darshan doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. This year, he and his family are leaving the U.S.

In March, his wife and their son flew back to India. By late summer, he’ll move to India permanently, too.

“Once you make that decision, life becomes so simple,” he said. “Our focus has completely shifted to what we are going to do in our new life back in India. We are more relaxed than ever.”

Feeling homesick for Seattle

For others, leaving the U.S. can be more painful.

Zhengyang Li, 34, moved to the U.S. in 2014 with a goal of becoming a video game developer. He landed a job doing exactly that after getting his bachelor’s degree and H-1B status. In 2024, he asked his employer to sponsor him for a green card. But because of long processing times, his employer told him that it wouldn’t be able to do so before the time left on Li’s H-1B status ran out. Without a pending green card application, he could not renew his H-1B visa.

So he began making preparations to move his family to Guangzhou, China, where they relocated last November.

“I spent a decade to build all these connections and community,” he said in a recent phone interview. Now he had to start from scratch in a new city. “We’re doing all right, but there are challenges.”

He misses his friends, his Maple Valley neighborhood, the easy sense of familiarity of the roads and shopping centers he’d grown used to. Because he had to move on a tight timeline, he sold most of his belongings at a loss. His son misses his former classmates and teachers.

In addition to his full-time job, Li had been pursuing a master’s degree at DigiPen. Since leaving the U.S., Li had to put a stop to his research and lost touch with his close-knit network of professors, peers and the people he was mentoring.

He got another job in video game development that he finds challenging and rewarding. But in the long run, he still feels like there’s more room for career advancement in the video game industry in the U.S.

For regions like the Seattle area with a high ratio of immigrant workers to the total workforce, outward migration can translate to lower consumer spending, business revenue and home prices.

At least for now, the economic effects of leaving are mostly borne by individuals making the move.

Bharath M., who’s planning his departure to Bangalore next year, is bracing himself for the pay cut. But he’s also looking forward to a lower cost of living.

He and his wife are scoping out jobs for themselves and schools for their son right now. Relatives are helping him tour potential homes in the city.

Then there are the things he can’t put a price tag on, like the freedom to not worry about visas or layoffs anymore.

"It has been a real struggle for the last decade or so for me and my family," he said. "When it gets to a point where even planning a simple vacation outside the U.S. or going to meet family, to see your parents, all of the simple things become challenging, then you stop and consider whether it's all worth continuing here.

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