‘How much have they paid you?’: US lawmaker slammed for joining India Fest, he pushes back

Republican leader Tim Burchett, US Rep from Tennessee, strongly pushed back as he received flak for attending India Fest. “I had a great time @ Indiafest 2025 today,” he posted sharing three photographs from the event. In one of the photographs, he was being felicitated with a garland. “Of course you did…big tech loves that H1B support you provide. How much have they paid you to “love” Indiafest?” one of the hateful comments read. “PATHETIC!!! AMERICA FIRST!!!! Vote out ANY politician that bends the knee to another country. Traitor,” another wrote.“When’s America fest in India? You going?” a third comment said.Reacting to one particular comment, Tim Burchett replied: “The Indian Community believes in family, capitalism, hard work and America. Those are 4 pretty cool things in my opinion.”This post too drew a lot of negative comments with social media users calling for the deportation of the Indian community. The exchange took place amid a strong anti-India and anti-H-1B sentiment prevailing in the country, with the American tech workers leading from the front, accusing India of stealing jobs from Americans. US tech companies are hugely dependent of H-1B visa program that allows companies to hire foreign skilled workers. But the visa program has been misused to bring in cheap labor from outside which US politicians call a ‘displacement’ of Americans.Vice president JD Vance recently criticized tech companies like Microsoft for laying off people while applying for H-1B programs to hire from outside. The Trump administration is caught in a tough spot over the H-1B issue as MAGA wants H-1Bs to be regulated and then abolished but several Republican leaders are accused of pandering to the Indian community in US. The Trump administration is proposing an H-1B overhaul switching to a wage-based hiring from the present lottery system so that only high-wage and high-skilled professionals are hired from foreign countries and entry-level jobs only go to Americans.