“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.”