This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Indian venture capitalist Asha Jadeja Motwani has publicly claimed credit for President Trump's sudden "change of heart" on H-1B visas, a program the White House itself admits has been "deliberately exploited to replace" American workers. Indeed, Trump's September 2025 Presidential Proclamation states that H-1B has undermined both America's "economic and national security."

Yet within months, Trump reversed course and began welcoming more H-1B workers, declaring that H-1B is "MAGA" and stating that unemployed Americans cannot fill these jobs.

Motwani boasted that she spent "almost one year battling for India in Washington D.C.," enjoying "unusual access" at Mar-a-Lago while pressing U.S. leaders to adopt India-aligned immigration positions. Indian media profiles describe her as a key power broker in Washington behind Trump's H-1B shift.

On Nov. 15 she posted on X that she met Trump at his private club and spoke to him about "my favorite country India" and "how crucial it is for the U.S. to have India strongly aligned with us," adding that he replied he "loves both India and Modi."

Under U.S. law, direct political engagement with a sitting president on behalf of a foreign nation is not a social courtesy. It is foreign political activity. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires anyone who seeks to influence U.S. officials "at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal" to register with the Department of Justice so the American people can see who is trying to move their government.

Motwani did not present herself as an American citizen sharing a personal opinion. She described herself as lobbying for "India," complained that "not a single other high net worth individual (HNI) Indian American is helping India in D.C.," and urged more wealthy Indian-origin donors to join her. That is a self-portrait of someone acting for a foreign principal while enjoying the benefits of U.S. citizenship.

A search of the official FARA database shows no registration for Asha Jadeja Motwani or her foundations, despite a years-long pattern of India-aligned political advocacy stretching from the White House to Silicon Valley, elite universities and national-security think tanks.

Blueprint for a foreign lobby

This is not a one-off brag. In a detailed thread on X Motwani laid out a step-by-step plan to build an "India lobby" in Washington.

She wrote about targeting "Trump circles," explicitly distinguishing them from the State Department and urged Indian conglomerates such as Reliance and Adani to spend "substantial amounts" to "build influence in D.C." and "build relationships in Washington D.C." That is a call for foreign corporate money to reshape U.S. political outcomes.

Foreign governments and foreign companies can lobby in the United States only through registered agents who disclose their activities under FARA and lobbying laws. Motwani's own words describe the same conduct – lobbying for a foreign principal – without registration or public accountability.

She repeatedly frames America as an instrument for India's geopolitical strategy and describes her goal as keeping India "in the American pocket and not with anybody else." That language tracks directly with India's official diaspora strategy, which calls on Indian-origin elites in the United States to advance Delhi's strategic agenda inside Western institutions.

H-1B as 'slave labor'

Motwani has also openly described how the H-1B system she champions actually works. In a Sept. 21 post she wrote that the "dirty little secret" of H-1B labor is that foreign workers are treated as "a bit of slave labor," pointing to 80-hour work weeks, "no complaints" and no overtime demands.

She added that this arrangement "would be impossible if American workers replaced these foreigners," because employers would be forced to pay overtime, provide benefits and face litigation from workers who are free to report abuse without risking their immigration status.

Her own description of H-1B labor conditions, illegal hours, unpaid overtime and silence enforced by fear of deportation points approvingly to unlawful practices under U.S. labor and employment law, regardless of a worker's nationality. This is not a "talent pipeline." It is a system built on vulnerability. Employers exploit H-1B workers precisely because their immigration status can be used as leverage. Motwani's statements reveal the program's real function: securing a cheaper, more compliant, more easily exploited labor force.

Motwani is not a detached commentator, but rather is a long-time Silicon Valley investor with ties to firms repeatedly scrutinized for H-1B abuse, including Google, PayPal and multiple venture-backed tech companies she has funded, mentored or partnered with. Her statements are not guesses; they are admissions from inside the investor class. Yet she continues to press U.S. leaders to expand the very pipeline she admits is built on "slave labor," while American workers are displaced and U.S. wage laws are undercut.

Foreign ideology and political access

Motwani's political influence campaign is paired with explicit support for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). As documented by the Encyclopaedia Britannica and AP News, RSS provides the doctrine while BJP executes that doctrine through state power.

Motwani has repeatedly praised RSS as "India's crown jewel," said she is "studying it on a war footing" and urged Indians to "defend it."

In another post, she argued that anyone in the West who "defames" RSS should be "taken to court."

Reporting by the U.K.-based Byline Times notes that Motwani's father served in the RSS and identifies her as part of a U.S.-based network amplifying Hindutva-aligned narratives.

At the same time she boasts of influencing U.S. lawmakers, senior officials and even President Trump on H-1B and U.S.-India policy. Under FARA, "foreign principals" include foreign governments, foreign political parties and foreign ideological movements. RSS and BJP fall squarely into those categories. When someone with direct RSS lineage and open ideological alignment gains access to U.S. leaders and uses that access to press for foreign-aligned policies, it raises exactly the foreign-influence concerns FARA was enacted to address.

Nonprofit fronts and foreign defense pipelines
Beyond her personal lobbying, Motwani runs U.S.-based foundations including the Motwani Jadeja Global Foundation and the Motwani Institute for Thought Leadership in Innovation.
These entities state that they aim to shape government policy in India and the United States, promote "Indian voices" in U.S. think tanks and "open doors at Davos and Washington."

Her foundation funded a major initiative at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), one of Washington's most influential national-security think tanks. With her support, CNAS launched a program on the "U.S.-India Strategic Partnership" focused on defense cooperation, intelligence sharing, drones, space, semiconductors and the Quad, the exact areas where India seeks deeper U.S. alignment.

At the same time, Motwani is partnering directly with foreign defense institutions. In 2024, her foundation launched DRISHTI, an India-Israel initiative built with Israel's Directorate of Defense Research & Development, part of Israel's Ministry of Defense, to advance dual-use technologies in AI, drones, robotics and autonomous systems. She then opened the Motwani Jadeja Centre of Excellence at T-Hub in Hyderabad as the hub of this corridor.

This creates a closed loop: A U.S. private foundation is embedded in Indian and Israeli defense-adjacent tech pipelines overseas while funding U.S. think-tank work that shapes how Washington views and manages its defense relationship with India. Under FARA, foreign-aligned policy programming combined with direct work alongside foreign defense ministries is a textbook indicator that registration and disclosure are required.

The Department of Justice has already brought cases in response to similar patterns of undisclosed foreign influence, including charges against think-tank co-director Gal Luft for alleged China-linked activity, scrutiny of Qatar's funding of the Brookings Institution and the indictment of former Trump adviser Thomas Barrack for acting as an unregistered agent of the UAE.

Pipelines into Silicon Valley and American institutions

The Rajeev Circle Fellowship, run by Motwani's foundation, is marketed as a program that "induces" founders from South Asia into a "tight knit community" in Silicon Valley. Fellowship materials say participants are groomed into a "distributed network of budding Scout VCs," signaling a foreign-national investment and influence network embedded inside the U.S. tech ecosystem, not a typical scholarship.

The program promises that fellows "acquire a permanent home in the Valley" after their first visit and enjoy "unprecedented freedom" to return to the U.S. for sales, fundraising and business development, with all expenses covered by the foundation. A private foundation cannot grant immigration status or lawful residency. Yet the language describes a privately funded system giving select foreign nationals repeated, structured access to U.S. tech and capital markets.

According to the foundation's own descriptions, fellows become a "living and breathing corridor between South Asia, Europe and the U.S.," a South-Asia-only network connecting founders directly into U.S. venture, technology and commercial platforms. That structure mirrors the diaspora-mobilization frameworks promoted in India's own policy documents.

The same approach appears in Motwani's work with U.S. policy institutions. In February 2024, the foundation announced a partnership with the Atlantic Council to send U.S. foreign-policy and national-security experts to India's Raisina Dialogue, co-organized by India's Ministry of External Affairs, with the stated goal of "advancing India's global ambitions" and "shaping India's trajectory on the world stage."

Then in October 2024, the foundation made a major gift to the 21st Century India Center at UC San Diego to fund an India fellowship, leadership program and courses hub targeting U.S. federal and state officials, U.S. military officers, journalists and business leaders and to place them inside Indian institutions for weeks at a time.

At the Stanford India Conference 2025, on a panel titled "Geopolitics and Defense in the Changing World," supported by the foundation, Motwani joined national-security scholars to discuss India's military strategy, defense posture, AI-enabled warfare and its alignment with U.S. frameworks such as the Quad and I2U2.

At Davos 2025, her foundation sponsored a panel on U.S.-India relations featuring former U.S. Ambassador Eric Garcetti and executives from major Indian multinationals to promote deeper alignment on defense, technology, trade and security.

These are not casual networking events. Rather, they are structured programs that bring U.S. officials, experts and capital into forums built around India's strategic priorities. Under FARA, when such programs are carried out "for or in the interests of" a foreign principal, particularly when they target U.S. decision-makers, transparency and registration are not optional.

A pattern the law was written to expose

Viewed together, the pieces form a clear pattern. Asha Jadeja Motwani tells the world she is "battling for India in Washington," claims to have helped flip a U.S. president on H-1B, urges Indian corporations to pour money into "building influence in D.C.," praises and defends the RSS-BJP ideological machine that governs India and runs U.S. foundations that partner with foreign defense ministries, move foreign founders into Silicon Valley and embed U.S. officials in Indian institutions.

She openly states that the "dirty little secret" of H-1B is that workers are treated as "a bit of slave labor," describing conditions that, if imposed on any employee in America, violate U.S. law. Yet she pushes U.S. leaders to expand that program while American workers are sidelined and their wage protections are weakened.

Finally, as noted earlier, under American law, anyone who acts "for or in the interest of" a foreign government, foreign political party or foreign ideological movement and tries to influence U.S. policy or public opinion must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Failing to register while doing that work is a federal offense.

Americans should not have to decode legal jargon to see what is happening: A powerful Silicon Valley figure is using U.S. citizenship, U.S. institutions and U.S. access to advance the agenda of a foreign government, including a visa system she herself describes as built on exploitation and "slave labor," without the transparency federal law demands.

The record of Motwani's statements, her political outreach, her foundation's partnerships and her role in programs involving U.S.-India defense, technology and immigration policy fits the very pattern of undisclosed foreign influence that FARA was designed to bring into the open. The harm is not abstract. It falls on American workers, American institutions and American security. Whether those protections are enforced in this case is a test – not of India's power, but of America's willingness to uphold its own laws.

The documented records