While Donald Trump is rushing to fulfill his promise to limit immigration, Silicon Valley's tech workers from India are facing uncertainty about their status.
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00:00We cannot afford to lose a job.
00:04And do you feel it like a pressure on you?
00:07It's a goddamn pressure, it's a really fearful thing.
00:13So we better be in a place where we're not happy, but secured.
00:17A S who asks that we not use his full name is a firmware engineer at a Silicon Valley
00:23startup.
00:24He asked us to conceal his identity out of concern that publicly commenting on immigration
00:30issues may affect him and his ability to work in the United States.
00:35Could there be new policies saying, OK, now H-1B will be really hard to get, or people
00:40on H-1B from past six years can no longer work here?
00:45Could these policies come from Trump?
00:48That will be really scary.
00:49More than 70% of the temporary H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers in the U.S. go
00:54to Indian nationals.
00:56And they are the ones that stand to be most affected as a wider debate on the future of
01:00skilled labor rages on, with some Trump allies wanting more restricted immigration, while
01:07Trump himself has flip-flopped from opposition to support of the H-1B visa program.
01:13But the program itself has been the target of harsh criticism.
01:18Silicon Valley strives on global talent, but also has a dark secret.
01:23Here for many hiring H-1B visa workers, it's not about skills, it's about money and control.
01:31Many who study labor issues, like Ron Hera, argue that the H-1B visa is misused.
01:38They don't control their own work permit and their ability to stay in the U.S.
01:42It's dependent on their employer.
01:44What that does is it gives the employer a lot of power over that worker.
01:48This employer says he no longer hires H-1B visa holders.
01:52Vivek Vadva, a CEO of a Silicon Valley life science company, also says the system is flawed.
02:00If you're now running a big technology company, you would rather have more stable employees
02:05who can't leave, who get lower salaries, than have people who are going to just jump ship
02:11like the rest of the employees do.
02:14But the system has also produced stars at the top of their fields, tech leaders like
02:19Sundar Pichai from Google or Satya Nadella from Microsoft.
02:23So many, like Vivek, argue that changing the system should not be about allowing fewer
02:29qualified people to come to the U.S.
02:31Rather, those who do come should have easier pathways to green cards, so they can live
02:37and work here permanently.
02:39But few can predict how likely that is.
02:42You have this battle between the anti-immigrants and the Silicon Valley crowd.
02:49And who will Donald Trump listen to?
02:51God knows.
02:52It depends on what day of the week it is and what his mood is.
02:55We don't know.
02:56So this is why I can't predict what they're going to do with H-1B policy, with green cards
03:01or immigration policy in particular.
03:03It is this kind of uncertainty that AS is trying to manage.
03:07He's eligible for a green card, but the backlog for processing applications is in
03:13the millions, with the waiting time counted in decades.
03:18This is actually very demeaning.
03:20If you check your status to get a green card, it shows 108 years.
03:25Despite his worries, AS says he hopes he can stay in the U.S. and contribute to its culture
03:31of innovation, as long as the system lets him.
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