Amid a fierce debate among President Donald Trump’s supporters over H-1B visas for foreign workers, federal authorities have conducted face-to-face interviews mandated for renewals in visa holders in their home countries.
Technology companies say the visa (for professionally skilled workers and requires renewal every three years) is key to staying competitive, but critics have been used to curb wages and replace American workers.
H-1B holders who currently have no visa changes can cancel renewal applications at their home country or foreign consulates, or renew remotely through the US federal field offices under the new rules. An in-person interview is required for applications abroad, and it appears that the applicant’s option to renew in a country other than his own country is being deprived of. It was not immediately clear whether interview requirements would be imposed for renewals in US field offices.
Immigration attorneys expect the change, which came into effect on September 2, will cause delays at overseas consulates and US field offices.
“It was a really great process. If everything is the same, there’s no point in asking all those questions and getting them to participate in the interview,” said Kelly Denning, a partner at the San Francisco office of Bar Immigration Law Firm, who spent 17 years as a lawyer for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Alternatively, at the discretion of federal authorities, H-1B workers could renew their visas at US consulates in other countries rather than in their own company, including Canada and Mexico, but Duehning believes the new rules would eliminate that option.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services introduced the US Department of State with questions about the new rules. The department said visa applicants should check the embassy and consulate websites for information on visa application requirements and procedures.
“Face-to-face interviews with consular officers overseas are one of the most important tools for the State Department to detect fraud, misrepresentation, and other metrics that applicants are not entitled to the visa class they are seeking,” the department said.
Thousands of H-1B workers, primarily Indian citizens, work for Silicon Valley Technology companies. Visa holders are reluctant to speak up on the issue and fear that it could put their position at risk.
“We can only expect very long waits at Indian consulates,” Duehning said. “If they are not appointed on time, they could lose their permission to work.”
Most H-1B holders can also renew their US visas, and lateness is expected to see mandatory interview rules increase the number of H-1B workers applying in this country, possibly leading to delays in the field offices of U.S. citizenship and immigration services.
“Their field office is already overwhelming,” Duehning said.
Meanwhile, federal employment has been frozen, and a deviation in federal workers and citizenship and immigration services in the State Department would mean a decline in staffing, even if the Trump administration tightens scrutiny of H-1B applications and renewals, Duehning said. Applications for renewals made overseas, and in the field office, there are growing numbers of “requests for evidence” that the applications are valid, similar to what happened in the first Trump administration.
“It will continue to increase the efficiency and inconsistency that businesses need in the foreign workforce, and of course, it will only continue to increase the anxiety among foreign workers,” Duehning said.
The controversy over the H-1B visa exploded at the end of last year. This is because anti-immigrant conservatives faced off against tech industry supporters that are close to Trump. The president, who has criticized visas in the past and overseen a dramatic boost to rejection rates during his first term, has come out in favor of the H-1B.
In Silicon Valley, Google, Meta and Apple are among the top users of visas. Last year, Google received approximately 5,300 new and ongoing H-1B approvals, according to federal government data. Meta has received nearly 5,000 approvals, with Apple nearly 4,000, Intel roughly 2,500 and Oracle over 2,000. Seattle’s Amazon tops the list, with over 11,000. It is said that around 80,000 workers were approved last year to work in the US for around 10,000 California companies.
Duehning believes that the changes to the renewal rules stem from a “extreme vet” approach to Visa workers aimed at eradicating fraud, combined with the belief by some Trump administration officials that the H-1B expels American workers.
The Trump administration has recently shown that it could potentially scrap the lottery that awards 85,000 new H-1B visas each year, and will likely replace it with a system that will sign visas for payroll.
While tech companies push to expand the annual limit on new visas and claim to use H-1B to secure top talent around the world, the survey accuses visas of pushing wages down and staffing and outsourcing companies that supply many H-1B workers to Silicon Valley technology companies of replacing US workers with visa owners.
Original issue: August 12, 2025, 12:02 PM EDT
