An Emirates flight from San Francisco to Dubai was delayed by three hours on Friday after passengers demanded to disembark, fearing the impact of President Donald Trump's proclamation requiring H-1B visa applicants to pay a $100,000 fee. The flight was scheduled to depart just after 5 p.m. but was held up as confusion spread among travellers.
An Instagram video from the flight shows passengers standing and speaking to each other while the pilot announced they could leave the plane. 'Due to the current circumstances, obviously they’re unprecedented for us here at Emirates, we are aware that a number of passengers do not wish to travel with us and that is perfectly fine,' the captain said.
An engineer at a large tech company told Reuters that his wife, an H-1B visa holder, was on the flight and that at least five people chose to disembark. She decided to continue to India to care for her sick mother. 'It is a situation where we had to choose between family and staying here,' he said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified on Saturday that current H-1B visa holders can still leave and re-enter the country as normal, and that the $100,000 fee is a one-time fee applying only to petitions. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had earlier said it would be an annual fee, but Leavitt corrected that.
Several H-1B visa holders travelling on Friday were caught off guard. One woman demanded to get off a flight from New York to Paris after hearing the news, and the pilot agreed to let her off even as the plane was taxiing. Another woman, who works at a semiconductor company in Silicon Valley, heard the news after landing in China and immediately booked a flight back to the US.
