Chaos Breaks Out In San Francisco Over H1B Visa: Wow

Intro

I'm not really going to get into what is going on with the whole new H-1B visa rule, but the new rule under Trump has stated that those who wish to apply for an H-1B visa would have to pay an additional $100,000. As of yesterday, this wasn't clarified whether this meant for renewals or not, so chaos broke out around the country.

As of now, the White House has said that this fee is only for new applicants (Economic Times).

The Details

Yesterday, September 20th, multiple flights were delayed departing the United States to various countries around the world. Most notably, a flight to India was delayed 2 hours due to multiple passengers disembarking, and an Emirates flight from San Francisco to Dubai was delayed 3 hours as passengers disembarked after being told by their employees not to leave the country.

The captain of the Emirates flight even came on to the PA to announce this message (props to Emirates here for handling this so professionally):

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. Due to the current circumstances obviously that are unprecedented for us at Emirates, we are aware that a number of passengers do not wish to travel with us, and that’s particularly fine.

As you can see, many passengers were on the phone with their employees

While this is certainly unprecedented for many passengers and airlines, I feel like airlines did the right thing holding the flights here, as passengers had to make split-second decisions whether to fly or not. So props here to everyone all around.

Activists Try To Stop People Booking Flights

Now, here's where it gets even more intriguing, as the White House announced this relatively last-minute, activists have gone online to block people coming back into the United States before the deadline.

I have to say, this is a step too far in my eyes, as they hiked the prices up to over 6000 USD per ticket, which is just absurd for a one-way economy fare. I get why they are doing it, but imagine being in someone else's shoes here, and having to pay that because someone wants to block tickets.

Ahhh, people, what do you do...

Final Thoughts

Chaos broke out yesterday across the United States, as a memo went out from companies telling customers to remain in the country for the time being, if they were under the H1B visa. While I wish the White House had been more upfront, so this could have been better handled, it seems that the airlines and passengers handled this to the best of their ability.