H-1B crackdown could hit tech giants hard – especially Amazon

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

As US President Donald Trump sends mixed signals on the H-1B visa programme, Amazon could find itself in a tight spot.

The $2 trillion tech giant has bagged the most H-1B visa approvals each year since 2020, according to data from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The USCIS data includes newly issued visas and renewals. The H-1B visa allows highly skilled foreign workers to live and work in the US for up to six years, after which they can apply for a green card and be eligible to become naturalised citizens.

In 2024, Amazon Com Services obtained at least 9,265 H-1B visas. Many of its subsidiaries, such as Amazon Web Services and Amazon Development Center, also obtained visas in this category.

US tech giants have become increasingly dependent on H-1B visas as they “have grown exponentially over these past few years, and they’ve added many more verticals … so they need more IT people for that,” Poorvi Chothani, founder of Mumbai-based global immigration...

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