US Loses Top Tech Talent to India in Wake of H-1B Chaos

Two decades ago, Kunal Bahl almost achieved the American dream. The India-born engineer earned an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, then an internship at Microsoft Corp. That position led to an invitation to have dinner with Bill Gates at his house, and later to a full-time job at the tech giant. But the dream unraveled in 2007, when Bahl’s H-1B visa application was rejected. At 23 he packed his bags and returned to his home country. “My heart sank when I got word,” he says. “Such decisions are one-sided and irreversible.”

Bahl returned to India in 2007 after failing to secure an H-1B visa.

Photographer: Zishaan Latif for Bloomberg Businessweek

At the time, US ...