The week following layoffs, there’s a certain silence in a tech office. People wear their headphones for a bit longer. Slack becomes silent. An engineer with an H-1B visa is working on a computation unrelated to code somewhere in that silence. 60 days. For thousands of Indian professionals working at Meta and Amazon, that is the number that counts now, and the math becomes suddenly personal.
In its most recent round of layoffs, Meta eliminated about 8,000 positions as part of a larger reorganization centered on artificial intelligence. Amazon continued to make cuts across all divisions, following a trend that has persisted for the previous two years. It appears to be standard corporate housekeeping on paper. However, a layoff is more than just a layoff for an employee whose right to reside in the nation is guaranteed by their employment contract. There is a countdown on this eviction notice.
According to USCIS regulations, an H-1B holder who loses their job typically has 60 days, or until their I-94 expires, to find a new sponsor, change their status, or pack up. In a market where the firms firing employees are also the ones hiring them, it takes sixty days to replace a job. It has a cruel symmetry. Indians are the most vulnerable when the floor drops because they make up the vast majority of H-1B petitions that are approved. Due to country-specific restrictions, many have been waiting years—sometimes over ten years—for a green card. Their entire American existence rests on a foundation that could be destroyed by a single calendar invitation.
It’s difficult to ignore how rapidly the pragmatic concerns accumulate. a mortgage in a pricey metropolis. A child in the middle of the term. health coverage that vanishes as soon as the badge malfunctions. People openly cheered that an Indian had lost his job after a widely shared post about a laid-off Meta employee with a wife and child went viral. That response reveals something unsettling about the direction this discussion has taken.
Some employees are using Form I-539 to apply for B-1 or B-2 visitor status to buy time and continue their lawful search. That was feasible, according to earlier advice, as long as you weren’t working. However, according to immigration lawyers cited in recent US reports, officers are now closely examining these filings and requesting additional supporting documentation and justification. The escape hatch is narrowing.
This round feels different because of the motivation behind it. According to reports, Meta plans to invest over $100 billion in AI this year, rerouting funds and personnel toward chips, data centers, and engineering talent that it truly wants to retain. The cuts do not constitute a downturn in the conventional sense. They are a reallocation. This distinction is important because a downturn comes to an end. The new form of things could be a reallocation.
According to a recent Blind survey, almost half of Indian professionals would think about returning home if they were laid off. The expanding tech sectors in Canada, Europe, and India are beginning to resemble plans rather than backup plans. On the surface, Meta offers a generous severance package that includes up to 18 months of healthcare in addition to 16 weeks of base pay plus additional compensation for tenure. However, a visa cannot be sponsored by severance. It purchases groceries rather than time.
As this develops, it seems as though the agreement that underpinned it all—the covert agreement that brought these workers here—was always more precarious than anyone acknowledged. The talent was sought after. Apparently, the permanence was negotiable.
