But just before Thanksgiving, Ravi got a call from his future employer.

“They told me that because of the economic downturn they couldn’t hire me in anticipation of tougher times ahead. They were laying off other American employees, and cutting my job would be a proactive measure,” said Ravi, who gave only his first name because he did not want his job prospects affected. “I do feel bad for anyone losing a job, whether it’s an American or an H-1B foreign worker. But for foreign students, if we don’t get a job, we have to go back to our home countries. When I talk to my parents, they tell me not to worry and return home. But I had really hoped to stay.”

As the US economy slows, highly skilled foreign professionals seeking work under various visa programmes are finding it harder to get jobs. President Obama’s stimulus package stops US companies, largely in banking and financial services, that take federal bailout money from hiring H-1B visa holders for two years if they have laid off American workers in the previous six months. The administration has vowed to tighten restrictions and step up oversight of all work visa applications.

The H-1B programme brings in about 85,000 skilled foreign workers every year, ostensibly to fill jobs that US workers cannot or will not do. But some companies in the science and technology fields, afraid of a backlash over hiring foreign professionals rather than American ones, are rescinding job offers. Analysts say it is part of a wave of mounting anger in the United States over work visas, especially at a time when more than half a million Americans are being laid off every month.

“Hiring H-1B visa holders has become as toxic as giving out corporate bonuses,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke University professor and Harvard University research fellow.

The United States is not the only nation making it more difficult for foreigners to get work. Persian Gulf countries have reduced the number of work visas they offer, forcing unemployed Indians to return home. Britain has begun to review its immigration policies to determine whether there should be more restrictions on the types of workers who can obtain visas.

“This is part of the broader story of the unwinding of globalisation in the current economic crisis. As goods have moved more freely around the world, so did people, but now that’s ending,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations and author of the book “The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11.”

The stimulus bill contained the Employ American Workers Act, which was sponsored by Senators Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.). They say that they are worried that laid-off Americans struggling to find work are being displaced by foreign junior investment analysts, computer programmers and corporate lawyers who accept a fraction of the pay commanded by Americans.

“This H-1B programme is a sweetheart deal for employers, in many instances, to be able to gain cheap labour from abroad,” Sanders, the son of a Polish immigrant, said in a telephone interview.

Nearly 2 million NRIs live in the US, according to the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. NRIs send home more than $30 billion a

year, making up about 3 per cent of India’s GDP, the International Labour Organization estimates.

Last month, a Confederation of Indian Industry delegation visited Washington to plead the case for the H-1B visa programme. That comes after members of India’s National Association of Software and Service Companies met with Grassley and called the H-1B hiring restrictions “extremely worrying.”