--- title: "The H-1B Builds a Career in America and Makes It Hard to Live One" description: "Houses, promotions and families wait on a visa with an expiration date — Business Insider spoke to more than 20 holders" author: "Walter Pine" published: 2026-09-28T09:56:46Z modified: 2026-09-28T14:17:33Z url: https://rews.cc/a/the-h-1b-builds-a-career-in-america-and-makes-it-hard-to-liv-ce0bae language: en tags: ["immigration", "workforce", "economy", "trump", "h-1b", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # The H-1B Builds a Career in America and Makes It Hard to Live One *Houses, promotions and families wait on a visa with an expiration date — Business Insider spoke to more than 20 holders* By Walter Pine · September 28, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/the-h-1b-builds-a-career-in-america-and-makes-it-hard-to-liv-ce0bae ## In brief - Amazon manager Madhur Mehta and his fiancée shelved a home purchase while she awaits her final H-1B lottery attempt - Business Insider interviewed more than 20 H-1B holders and hopefuls for its year-long H-1B Fallout series - A September 2025 $100,000 fee on some petitions pushed Visa employee Shreya Mishra Reddy to leave for Toronto - A DHS rule proposed September 11 would eliminate the 60-day grace period for laid-off H-1B workers - The US issues 85,000 new H-1B visas yearly; USCIS got 344,000 applications for FY2026 and filled FY2027 by July 17 In five years in the United States, Madhur Mehta has earned a master’s degree, landed a program manager job at Amazon and been selected for an H-1B visa. At 35, he cannot plan much further ahead than that. He and his fiancée looked at buying a house last year and could not bring themselves to commit; both are from India, and she has one attempt left in the H-1B lottery before her work authorization expires. “It’s hard, you know, obviously you can’t plan,” Mehta told Business Insider, “unless we are both very clear on what our visa status is.” Mehta’s situation is the contradiction at the center of the H-1B program: the visa that lets highly skilled foreign workers build American careers also makes it hard to know how firmly to build an American life. For its H-1B Fallout series, marking a year of uncertainty around the program, Business Insider interviewed more than two dozen people who received the visa or tried to. The program has been under pressure all year as the Trump administration moves to clamp down on legal immigration, including a contested $100,000 fee on certain H-1B petitions that has been tied up in court. A White House spokesperson said the administration’s agenda is designed to prioritize American workers; a USCIS spokesperson said the goal is to ensure employment-based visas “supplement, not supplant American workers”; a State Department spokesperson said the proposed fees address “abuse of the program” and protect American interests. Shreya Mishra Reddy, 34, came from India for a master’s degree in 2021 and landed a dream role at Visa in 2023. When her student work authorization was due to expire in January 2026, she had a plan: leave and apply for H-1B jobs from overseas. In September 2025 the administration announced the $100,000 fee on certain new petitions for workers outside the US. “I knew it was no longer a realistic option for me,” she said. She moved to Toronto, where her husband lives. “I only planned for the best-case scenario. It didn’t happen, and it ended up costing me a lot.” ## The employer tie H-1B holders can change jobs, but every move means paperwork: a new employer must file a fresh petition, and even staying put can require an amended one if a title or work location changes. That makes some workers wary of promotions, new companies and new cities — precisely the moves that pay best. In July, median year-over-year pay growth ran at 7% for job-switchers against 4.4% for those who stayed, according to ADP Research. “The employer tie affects everything,” said Nicole Gunara, principal attorney at Manifest Law. “The timeline and risk profile for changing jobs are completely different from a US citizen.” David Bier of the Cato Institute noted that USCIS data shows tens of thousands of job-change petitions filed every year; Gunara’s framing is that the tie “does not prevent switching; it adds steps and costs to switching.” The tie tightens hardest at a layoff. An H-1B holder who loses a job typically has up to 60 days to find a new employer willing to file a petition or risk losing status. Luciana Pereyra spent eight years in the US — first on a tennis scholarship, then in marketing at Ohio State’s College of Nursing — until the university eliminated her role in January. Two weeks before her deadline ran out she thought she had another Ohio State position; the university said it could not complete the visa process in time, citing timing and potential visa fees. She returned to Peru in March. “You’re always gonna be in that survival mode of, if you lose your job, you’re out,” she said. A proposed Department of Homeland Security rule published September 11 would eliminate the 60-day window altogether, which Fragomen partner Aaron Blumberg said would make layoffs and job changes “even more precarious.” On September 18, Trump directed agencies to give added scrutiny to petitions from employers that have laid off, or plan to lay off, comparable US workers. Employers generally pay H-1B petition fees, but workers absorb what employers need not cover: dependent visas, travel for visa appointments, and the cost of leaving fast. Soumi Chanda, selected in the 2021 lottery and later sponsored by Amazon, was laid off last year and left the country on short notice. She estimates the move — airfare, USDA and Indian customs paperwork, everything done on deadline — cost about $18,000. The larger loss was not furniture or leases. Chanda had been the key provider for her mother and sister since her father died when she was 17. “It was always me,” she said. “My entire security, everything just fell apart.” Disha Lamba left voluntarily. After five years in New York, doing healthcare work she liked at CVS Health, she walked away from a lottery selection rather than keep managing visa stamps and re-entry restrictions. The other half of the decision was family. “I can’t hug my parents over a video call,” she said. Now home, her family starts its days with green tea and conversation. Families that stay face their own arithmetic: spouses hold dependent H-4 visas, only some H-4 spouses can get work authorization, and children on dependent status typically age out at 21. “That can become an enormous source of stress for some families,” Blumberg said. ## Why they stay The uncertainty is not unique to the H-1B — visa holders worldwide struggle to establish permanency — but people endure this one because of what is on the other side of it. The program feeds heavily into technical, scientific and professional services, along with engineering, education and healthcare; Amazon, Meta and Microsoft rank among the top sponsors. Approved beneficiaries in fiscal year 2025 had median annual compensation of $133,000. The US issues 85,000 new H-1B visas a year; USCIS received 344,000 applications for fiscal year 2026, and said on July 17 that it already had enough applications for fiscal year 2027. In August the administration proposed a $103,265 fee on some new petitions. “Many of us do get really worried about chasing folks away who are going to be here to start the next company that is revolutionary or work for the university who develops the next vaccine,” said Kelli Duehning, an immigration attorney at BAL. Madhur Mehta is still waiting. His fiancée’s last shot at the H-1B lottery has not resolved, the house they walked away from last year remains unpurchased, and the decision about when their family begins is on hold with everything else.