Visa Cartel Row:US Senator Highlights Hyderabad’s Chilkur Balaji H1-B Visa Temple

A huge controversy broke out online after Eric Schmitt, the Republican senator from Missouri, criticized the United States’ employment-based H-1B visa system and made a reference to Hyderabad’s famous Chilkur Balaji Temple, popularly known as the “Visa Temple”. In a series of posts on social media platform

“The H-1B program is a fraud and a complete fraud. Globalist corporations want America’s markets, America’s courts, and America’s protection, but not America’s workers. This betrayal must end now,” Schmitt wrote in one of his posts. Calling the system the “Visa Cartel,” the senator claimed that major corporations use foreign worker programs to suppress wages and reduce employment opportunities for U.S. citizens.

“The Visa Cartel is hollowing out the American middle class,” Schmitt said, arguing that the current work visa structure undermines local labor markets while benefiting multinational corporations. His words attracted particular attention in India after he mentioned the Chilkur Balaji Temple in Telangana. Chilkur Balaji Temple, known as the “Visa Balaji Temple”, is an ancient Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Balaji, near the outskirts of Hyderabad. It became famous for a unique tradition where devotees make 11 spiritual rounds (pradakshinas) to pray for visa approvals and 108 rounds to offer gratitude upon approval, and is still done to this day.