Bengaluru: A Democratic majority in Congress may shift the tone of the US immigration debate, but it is unlikely to bring immediate policy relief for Indian technology professionals or employers.However, experts believe a Democratic victory could help temper anti-immigrant sentiment and the political rhetoric targeting Indian technology professionals, creating a more favourable environment for skilled immigration and potentially laying the groundwork for policy changes in the longer term.Stephen Yale-Loehr, retired professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School, said a change in congressional control would not immediately translate into immigration reform.“President Trump is still president, and he controls the immigration agencies. Even if the Democrats pass positive immigration laws, President Trump can veto them. However, the Democrats can hold hearings and investigations to try to persuade the US public that immigration benefits, not hurts, the country. That way they will lay the groundwork for possible true immigration reform in 2029, assuming the Democrats control Congress then and there is a Democratic president then,” he said.David J Bier, director of Immigration Studies at Cato Institute, echoed this assessment, saying the election outcome would have almost no immediate impact on immigration policy. “It will have almost no immediate effect because Republicans still have enough votes to block most immigration bills in the Senate, and even if they didn’t, Trump would veto bills that block his agenda,” he said. Cyrus D Mehta, managing partner of New York-based law firm Cyrus D Mehta & Partners, said that even if Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, Trump would retain executive powers and could issue rules supporting the increase in H-1B fees to more than $100,000, along with other restrictions on the H-1B and green card programmes.“Trump will not be able to get legislation through Congress to endorse his executive actions if there are no Republican majorities. In any event, it would have been difficult for him to do so even now without 60 votes in the Senate. If the new Democratic majorities pass bills in Congress in 2026, Trump will have the power to veto them,” Mehta said.However, he said, officials in the Trump administration would face greater scrutiny and would need to justify their positions and policies before congressional oversight committees. If the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denies H-1B petitions without justifiable grounds, such decisions could also come under investigation.“Also, since Texas and Georgia have become Democratic, they will no longer side with Trump in litigation against the $100,000 fee. This will leave the administration with less support in defending its policies in court,” he said.For Indian IT companies, which have traditionally relied on H-1B visas to deploy skilled professionals to the US, the debate comes amid a gradual shift towards local hiring and a reduced dependence on overseas work visas. Indian technology companies have significantly expanded their US-based workforce over the years, building a stronger domestic talent pool.According to IT industry body Nasscom, the number of H-1B visas issued to leading Indian and India-centric companies fell from 14,792 in 2015 to 10,162 in 2024. India’s largest IT services company, TCS, had around 11,000 H-1B employees within its 32,000-33,000-strong US workforce as of October last year.Microsoft said 80% of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications it filed in the last fiscal year were for extensions or changes in the status of existing employees. Applications for new hires accounted for just 1% of its US workforce and involved individuals already legally present in the country.Nasscom has maintained that H-1B is a high-skilled worker mobility programme and a non-immigrant visa that helps bridge critical skills gaps in the US. Indian technology companies contribute about $103 billion to the US economy and support more than 500,000 jobs across over 25 states, according to the industry body.Research has also challenged the argument that H-1B visa holders displace American workers. National Foundation for American Policy’s (NFAP) latest research cited a study by economist Madeline Zavodny, which found that H-1B visa holders do not adversely affect US workers. Instead, their presence is associated with lower unemployment rates and faster earnings growth among college graduates, including recent graduates.The research also found that a one-percentage-point increase in the share of workers with H-1B visas in an occupation was associated with an increase of 0.1 to 0.26 percentage points in the earnings growth rate for workers in that occupation.Other research cited by NFAP suggests that restricting H-1B visas could also have wider employment consequences. It estimated that if 178,000 H-1B applications had not been rejected in 2007 and 2008 because of the annual cap, US metropolitan areas could have created as many as 231,224 additional jobs for US-born technology workers. Many of these jobs could have gone to workers without college degrees.Based on H-1B petitions in computer-related occupations rejected by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in FY24 and FY25 because of the annual cap, NFAP estimated that a substantially higher annual limit could have supported the creation of up to 615,000 additional jobs for US-born technology workers.Immigration could also have fiscal benefits. Research by former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf and Dartmouth economics professor Heidi Williams found that exempting STEM master’s and PhD holders from employment-based green card limits could reduce the US federal budget deficit by $634 billion over 20 years.