Washington: United States Vice-President JD Vance has acknowledged that his language was poorly chosen when he described foreign professionals working on H-1B visas as "indentured servants", conceding that his "rhetoric has been imperfect" in the face of sharp criticism that included a strong protest from India.
Speaking at a CBS News town hall event on Saturday, Vance faced a direct question from an Indian immigrant who became a United States citizen five years ago and voted for President Donald Trump. In response, he said his criticism had never been aimed at the workers themselves, but at American companies and the design of the visa system that, in his view, leaves foreign employees vulnerable to excessive employer control.
"I would say, and to the extent that my rhetoric has been imperfect here, that's on me," Vance said. "What I said about certain visa holders, certain H-1B holders, is not about the entire category."
The Vice-President argued that the structure of the H-1B programme could leave foreign workers in a difficult position because their legal status in the United States is closely tied to their employment. When a company sponsors an H-1B worker, he noted, it certifies that it cannot find a suitable American applicant for the role, while the worker's visa often becomes what he called their "only lifeline to the United States of America".
That dependency, he said, gives employers disproportionate power: a worker who disagrees with a boss or complains about conditions risks losing not just a job but the right to remain in the country.
"So, when I say indentured servitude, that is not a criticism of H-1B visa holders; that is a criticism of the company," Vance said. "It is the criticism of the visa system that allowed people to be treated as indentured servants, as they can be shipped to their countries of origin."
Earlier this month, while addressing a news conference on visa fraud, Vance had used the phrase "indentured servants" to describe H-1B workers and accused foreign outsourcing firms of undercutting the wages of American workers. The remarks drew a swift and unusually pointed response from New Delhi.
India's Ministry of External Affairs condemned the terminology as "deeply offensive", saying it carried painful historical and colonial legacy connotations. The objection struck a nerve in India, which is by far the largest source of H-1B professionals in the United States, with Indian technology workers forming the backbone of the programme's workforce.
The controversy had threatened to inject fresh friction into the bilateral relationship at a moment when both governments have been working to steady ties. The first phase of a long-discussed India-US trade agreement is in the final stages of drafting, and officials on both sides have been keen to keep the relationship on an even keel after months of tariff tensions and diplomatic strain.
At the town hall, Vance attempted to strike a balance between his administration's hard line on immigration enforcement and the concerns of skilled professionals and their families. He mentioned his South Indian in-laws while calling for a balanced approach that welcomes foreign professionals while protecting American workers.
His wife, Usha Vance, is of Telugu descent, and the Vice-President has previously invoked his family connection to India when discussing immigration policy.
The clarification appeared designed to defuse a diplomatic row without abandoning the underlying policy position. Vance continued to defend his substantive arguments about wage disparities and the treatment of foreign workers, arguing that some employers exploit the visa system to bring in labour they can control more tightly than domestic workers.
He said his choice of words had been imperfect, but insisted the concern he was raising was about corporate practices and system design rather than the workers who hold the visas.
The walk-back came during a town hall that also put Vance through a series of tough questions on other fronts, including the possibility of conflict with Iran, rising gas prices and the administration's broader immigration enforcement agenda.
For Indian professionals in the United States, who number in the hundreds of thousands and represent the largest cohort of H-1B holders, the episode has been closely watched. The programme allows American companies to employ foreign workers in specialised occupations for an initial period of up to three years, extendable to six, and forms a critical pipeline of skilled talent for the technology sector.
Indian applicants have historically received the majority of H-1B visas issued each year.
The Trump administration has taken a markedly more aggressive stance on immigration in its second term, with heightened scrutiny of visa programmes, workplace enforcement and deportation drives. Within that context, Vance's earlier remarks were seen in New Delhi as part of a broader pattern of rhetoric that painted skilled Indian migrants in an unfavourable light.
Whether the Vice-President's apology will fully settle the matter remains to be seen. Indian officials have not publicly commented on the walk-back, but diplomats on both sides have in recent months preferred to resolve such frictions quietly while pressing ahead with the trade deal and other bilateral business.
The stakes for Indian professionals are considerable. The H-1B programme allows American companies to employ foreign workers in specialised occupations for an initial period of up to three years, extendable to six, and forms a critical pipeline of skilled talent for the technology sector.
Indian applicants have historically received the majority of H-1B visas issued each year, and the programme has been central to the story of Indian professionals building careers in Silicon Valley and beyond over the past three decades.
The Trump administration has taken a markedly more aggressive stance on immigration in its second term, with heightened scrutiny of visa programmes, workplace enforcement and deportation drives. Earlier this year, the administration also moved to sharply raise the fees associated with H-1B applications, a step that drew concern from Indian technology companies and industry bodies.
Within that context, Vance's remarks were seen in New Delhi as part of a broader pattern of rhetoric and policy that has put skilled Indian migrants under pressure.
For the Indian government, the language of the remark mattered as much as the policy substance. The phrase "indentured servants" evokes the history of indentured labour under colonial rule, when millions of Indian workers were shipped to plantations across the British Empire under contracts that offered little real freedom.
That the term was applied to some of India's most accomplished professionals — engineers, doctors and researchers working at the top of their fields — is what made the response so sharp.
What is clear is that the episode has underscored how sensitive immigration rhetoric has become in the relationship between the two democracies. A phrase uttered at a domestic news conference in Washington reverberated within days through New Delhi's foreign policy establishment, prompting one of the sharpest public rebukes India has issued to a senior American official in recent memory — and forcing a rare public concession from the second-highest office in the United States.
(Reporting based on The Times of India, The Economic Times and The Telegraph India.)