They planned their futures around America. Now they're putting down roots elsewhere.

September 21, 2026 · Business Insider

Rob Dobi for BI

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Ananya Joshi loved her life in Chicago.

After moving from India for a master's degree in biotechnology at Northwestern University, she landed a $75,000-a-year job as a scientist at a lab-grown meat startup in 2024. She was doing research, living in an affordable apartment in a suburb, and road-tripping with friends on weekends.

But her life in the US had an expiration date. Joshi's company said it couldn't sponsor her for an H-1B visa. Her Optional Practical Training, or OPT — a work authorization for foreign students — was set to expire in July 2025.

She had two choices: She could take a job in Germany and leave behind her partner and life in the US, or race to find a new sponsor. She took the offer and moved in January.

"Having gone through so much turbulence, I really needed the stability to calm down," Joshi, 26, told Business Insider.

Ananya Joshi, a scientist, moved from the US to Germany after her H-1B plans fell through.

Natalia Kepesz for BI

Her decision reflects a broader uncertainty that international graduates and foreign workers are facing as they try to build careers in the US while navigating increasingly complex and turbulent immigration policies.

The US has long been a magnet for highly skilled workers from around the world, and the H-1B visa has been a gateway to better career opportunities since its introduction in the Immigration Act of 1990. There are about 700,000 people living and working in the US on H-1B visas, according to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy.

Securing one of these visas has never been easy. Demand far exceeds supply. The US issues 85,000 new H-1Bs each year. For fiscal year 2026, US Citizenship and Immigration Services received nearly 344,000 eligible registrations.

There's been an additional layer of uncertainty in the process since the Trump administration began its crackdown on H-1B visas a year ago this month.

Joshi is one of more than 20 international graduates and foreign workers Business Insider interviewed over the past year about whether — and how — to build careers in the US amid growing uncertainty over immigration policy.

This is the first of weekly installments of "H-1B Fallout: 1 Year Later," a series exploring how foreign workers are navigating the realities, challenges, and trade-offs of advancing their careers amid a rapidly changing US immigration landscape. The administration has said its changes are intended to curb misuse of the H-1B program and protect American workers from being displaced by lower-paid foreign labor.

A year of immigration chaos

Sonu, a software engineer at a Silicon Valley-based tech company, who got his H-1B visa in 2019, still remembers where he was on September 20, 2025.

The Indian national and his wife had saved a month of parental leave for a five-week trip to Asia. They planned to spend a week in Bali and Singapore, followed by four weeks at home in New Delhi. It would be Sonu's first trip back since his first daughter's birth. He was excited to show her off to his parents.

On the morning of the family's flight to New Delhi, his phone rang at 7 a.m. A friend in the US was calling to warn him: President Donald Trump had just signed an executive order requiring companies to pay a $100,000 fee for each H-1B application. The order, which was set to take effect on September 21, would prevent H-1B workers from returning to the US unless their employer paid the fee.

Sonu, who asked to be identified by only his first name, told Business Insider he struggled to believe what he was hearing.

"But I was with my family, and I couldn't risk it," he said.

Sonu spent more than $7,000 on tickets for the earliest flight to San Francisco.

This story is part of Business Insider's "H-1B Fallout: 1 year later" series.