Amid tightening US visa rules and an increasingly polarised debate around H-1B workers, Indian professionals in the United States are facing growing public scrutiny and online hostility — often unrelated to their actual work. In a rare and widely noted intervention, a US-based software engineer has pushed back strongly against such narratives.
‘They know the business inside out’
John Freeman, a software engineer at Citadel, publicly defended his Indian colleagues after a racially charged rant on X accused Indian professionals of incompetence and disruptive behaviour.
“My team lead is Indian. My boss is Indian. His boss is Indian. They’re all pretty sharp,” Freeman wrote. He described his colleagues as knowledgeable, collaborative and approachable, adding that he had never encountered the stereotype of Indian managers creating false urgency at work.
“If everyone you run into at your company is incompetent, then maybe your company just hires incompetents,” Freeman said, rejecting the generalisations outright.
Context of the controversy
Freeman’s response followed an X post that used a recent cybersecurity-related controversy involving Madhu Gottumukkala to make sweeping claims about Indian professionals. Gottumukkala, the Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, was recently named in a media report over the use of ChatGPT for a document upload — an action reportedly cleared through proper permissions.
Despite this, the incident was used online to reinforce negative stereotypes about Indian-origin professionals in technology and government roles.
Visa debate adds to pressure
Freeman’s comments come at a tense time for Indian workers in the US. Stricter immigration scrutiny, rising fees for new H-1B applications, and political rhetoric under President Donald Trump have shifted what was once an economic debate into one increasingly marked by cultural resentment.
As discussions around skills, immigration and national security intensify, Freeman’s defence stood out for grounding the debate in lived workplace experience rather than online outrage.