Sankar Juneja (name changed), a senior software engineer deployed on the site of an American client by his Indian employer, recently had to leave the US with a two-week notice.It was even worse for a female colleague of Juneja. She had to leave the country with a child born there while also nursing the dream for a Green Card.Both of them had their applications for the extension of H-1B visas rejected.They are among thousands of Indian IT professionals whose visa-extension applications have been rejected, or who have received repeated request for evidence. While getting an RFE from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) doesn’t mean rejection of the application, it requires the candidate to furnish more documents, at times more than once. And, even after completing all the documentation, the visa extension may still not come.For decades, India’s software engineers fancied an onsite stint in the US, and more often than not this worked as a motivation for joining the technology services industry. While increased protectionism in the US has made getting fresh work visas tough, those who are already there aren’t getting visa extensions as easily as before. Many of those IT professionals have either returned to India in the past two years, or are looking for opportunities here.“Shifting with a kid who was born in the US was challenging,” an engineer, who returned to India nine months ago, told ET. Children born in the US could face problems over lifestyle, culture and education once they are relocated.This executive is one of eight IT professionals at a top Indian software services exporter who recently relocated to India.Indian nationals accounted for about 2.2 million of the 3.4 million H-1B visa petitions filed in the decade to 2017, according to USCIS.In 2018, New Jersey-based Cognizant , which has most of its employees working out of offices in India, and five Indian IT services companies together accounted for two-thirds, or 8,742, of the 13,177 H-1B extension petitions rejected from 30 technology companies, think tank Centre for Immigration Studies said, citing USCIS data.While Cognizant saw 3,548 rejections in the past year, 2,042 applications of Infosys and 1,744 of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) were disallowed. “The major US-based firms such as Microsoft , Amazon and Apple increased their H-1B workforces during the year, while net reductions were imposed on the big Indian outsourcing firms,” the think tank said.H-1B visas are usually issued for three years, with a possible extension of another three years. Many executives who are in the US for years on work visas seek permanent resident status, or the so-called Green Card, as the second term of the H-1Bs comes to an end. The RFEs are usually issued at the time they seek the first extension, or when apply for Green cards. For Indians, the wait time for the Green card is as much as 10 years.“The RFE approval rate was so low that I thought I had to pack my bags,” said a software engineer, who was in her fifth year on an H-1B visa. “It was so traumatic at that time that I had to tell my client that I would be spending a little less time in my work, because I have to do a lot of documentation.”RFEs come with as many as 21 checklists, including work plan for two-and-a-half years, she said. Immigration lawyers said the “comfort level” of getting an H-1B visa approval has changed dramatically.“The relative certainty IT aspirants had in the past in the US is no longer there. It is a scary situation now and they do not have the comfort level of getting approvals for H-1B extension applications,” said Poorvi Chothani, managing partner at LawQuest, a global immigration and employment law firm.The tightening of the visa process, according to industry experts, is primarily due to the change in regime that has focused on securing jobs for Americans and pushed for movement of highly-skilled talent.Industry observers and human resource experts said the onsite stint for most technology professionals was nine months, but some of them extend the stay to more than 18 months. “I don’t think that model will undergo much change; of course, the rejections will continue,” said Nandita Gurjar, former global head of human resources at Infosys.She, however, said for people who have spent long years and have US-born children, it may be an uphill task to relocate in weeks. “Those kinds of cases are traumatic,” she said.IT services industry body Nasscom said there was a concern over increased RFEs and denials that were far higher for tech services companies than product companies. This is more so because of the talent gap in the US — product jobs are typically seen as higher skilled.“The demand for relevant STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills is far more than the supply,” said Shivendra Singh, head of global trade development at Nasscom.