Google has warned foreign staffers against travelling outside the US to avoid re-entry issues. The US government introduced new social media screening rules in mid-December — sparking widespread chaos as visa applicants faced massive delays. Mass cancellations have been reported from various centres in India as dates were pushed back till June 2026. The situation has also left many H-1B visa holders ‘stranded’ in India after they flew back to renew their documents.
According to an internal memo viewed by Business Insider, staffers have been warned against leaving the country because visa processing times have increased drastically. The email was shared by outside counsel BAL Immigration Law and warned staff who require a visa stamp for re-entry that they would “risk an extended stay outside the US”. The message also noted that some US embassies and consulates were currently experiencing delays up to 12 months.
According to a September email seen by Reuters, Google’s parent company Alphabet had also strongly advised its employees to avoid international travel and urged H-1B visa holders to remain in the US.
Delays, cancellations and ouster
The H-1B visa program — widely used by the U.S. technology sector to hire skilled workers from India and China — has been under the spotlight after the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee for new applications this year. Additional curbs have also forced applicants to open up their social media profiles and face multiple changes to the selection process.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, many Indian H-1B visa holders have found themselves stranded in their home country after travelling back to renew their American work permits. Their appointments were abruptly cancelled by US consular offices and rescheduled for months later.
‘Make social media profiles public or…’
The US government expanded screening and vetting measures for H-1B visa applicants and their H-4 dependents earlier this month — directing them to set all social media profiles to ‘public’.
“To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for H-1B and their dependents (H-4), F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas are instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to ‘public’…Every visa adjudication is a national security decision,” the State Department said in a December 15 order.