Donald Trump's proposed H-1B and Immigration rethink gets over 50k mentions on Twitter

The proposed move by the Trump administration to relook at the H-1B visa rules has become a much debated subject on Twitter. With over 3 lakh Indian software engineers on H-1B visa in the US, the proposed move is seen as a threat to the Indian IT sector.

Ever since the move to reconsider H-1B regulations, Twitter has witnessed high volume of  conversations around hashtags like #ImmigrationBan, #H1B and #H1BVisas.

The hashtag #H-1B visas had 2447 mentions and 33% conversations, which majorly conveyed that Donald Trump was not planning any executive order on H-1B visas, while 27% conversations pointed out that it was a leaked executive order and revealed Trump's Plans for H-1B visas.

A major part of the conversations, around 47%, highlighted how the Trump administration is making things difficult for legal immigrants by cutting H-1B visas. 

The second hashtag #H-1B had over 15600 mentions. 57% people tweeting with this hashtag were talking about the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s stand on H-1B visas and how the proposed move by the US administration would adversely impact the IT industry. Over 11% tweets were about companies that have already started migrating or are planning to do so, while 23%  tweets focused on the plummeting  Indian IT stocks.

The #Immigrationban trend had over 33950 mentions. Over 31% tweets were about the Muslim ban in America and people protesting against it, while 21% mentions highlighted how this proposed Trump order has impacted the aid patients slated for U.S medical care and 39% mentions criticised the ban.

These conversations were tracked by Digital and Social Media agency WATConsult between  January 29 and February 1, 2017.