‘Hinduism doesn’t convert’: Indian-American Frisco residents fight H-1B hate and misinformation about Indian-Americans

Indian-American women speak out against H-1B hate at Frisco City Council meeting.

As a Frisco council meeting turned into an outlet for anger over H-1B and the Indian community, one Indian-American resident who has lived in Texas since 2016 took issue with the narrative, which she said was based on misinformation. Ms. Neha Suratran said Frisco is one of the safest cities, not in spite of its diversity or Indian-American community, but in conjunction with it. Neha said there have been no confirmed reports of H-1B fraud in Frisco, and the Frisco City Council does not even have authority to do so. The video of her speech went viral on social media platforms. Suratran said some activists choose to speak about the H-1B visa program at city council meetings simply to spread hate because they fear those who are different from them. She said people express strong opinions based on group chats and viral posts without fact-checking. She argued that the H-1B visa program is not a simple system, as she elaborated that a person must have a specialized job opportunity, whether in a tech field or in medicine; they must have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and companies must prove they are not hiring cheap labor from foreign countries and pay the same wages they pay U.S. citizens. The system is selective, competitive, and regulated, and stopping H-1B will lead to a brain drain because not enough U.S. students are taking STEM or machine learning courses in college, and there are more foreign students than U.S. students taking these courses at U.S. universities. She said American Indian communities have better education, higher incomes and lower crime rates, but they are being maligned in the new narrative of an “Indian takeover” that dominated the Frisco Council meeting. She added that the Hindu Indian-American community also celebrates Christmas and Thanksgiving and that Hinduism will not be converted.Another U.S.-born Indian-American, Sahas Kaur, spoke of anti-Indian hatred and said the police chief told him that most cities with Frisco’s population would envy Frisco’s low crime rate.