Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-mulls-adding-new-100000-fee-h-1b-visas-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-09-19/

by mriguy • 10 months ago

1476 1798 10 months ago

reuters.com

esalman6• 10 months ago

All it'll do is replace competent workers who don't have $100k to spare, with incompetent workers who have the money.

nsm• 10 months ago

The fees are paid by employers and not workers.

nojvek• 10 months ago

Without salary enforcement, it does come out of workers eventually.

Like Americans paying Tariff fees out of their wallets due to price hikes.

esalman6• 10 months ago

This is still another loophole and the companies which exploit the program and workers (small consulting firms, not big tech per se) are still going to exploit this.

positr0n• 10 months ago

I certainly don't think the industry's hiring processes are perfect, but $100k on top of a normal wage for an incompetent worker is a lot of money to throw down the drain and not either run out of money or have someone competent notice and stop the situation before too long.

Terretta• 10 months ago

$100k ... is a lot of money

It's still less than a domestic recruiting fee for many types of roles the H1B was purportedly about, roles where it's hard enough to find someone you need a headhunter's help and the pool is still not exactly what you're looking for.

esalman6• 10 months ago

Unfortunately, to stop the situation you either need to let competent foreign workers in, or somehow make 2 years of masters education, or 7 years of PhD education more attractive to average Americans than flipping burgers and earning $22 an hour, on top of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars loan to get bachelor's degrees.

beAbU• 10 months ago

False dichotomy. Why would only incompetent workers have the 100k to spare?

esalman6• 10 months ago

There's a reason why corrupt politicians and extortionists all over the world choose to retire in the US.

SilverElfin• 10 months ago

Doesn’t this just mean less talent? Companies would hire locally if equal level talent was available. I doubt it’s really about saving money when these jobs earn a lot of revenue per employee. Adding this fee means companies may just not find anyone worth hiring. It would make more sense to require H1B salary to be equal to the highest paid local employee of the same role at that company than to just throw an arbitrary $100K fee on.

slaw2• 10 months ago

Local talent is available and looking for a work. Companies want cheap H1B workers.

x0x0• 10 months ago

I don't think you can possibly argue, in good faith, that in the midst of the tech recession there isn't plenty of local talent available. If you're actually paying decently, and probably even if not.

toomuchtodo14• 10 months ago

Doesn’t this just mean less talent? Companies would hire locally if equal level talent was available. I doubt it’s really about saving money when these jobs earn a lot of revenue per employee. Adding this fee means companies may just not find anyone worth hiring.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45224057

Your reply to my comment there:

(me) ... I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs ...

(you) They already do though. Do you own any items made in other countries? If so, you’re competing with other workers already. It seems weird to focus on immigrants workers in America versus citizens in America while importation is allowed at all. I find all of this also very much in conflict with HN’s anti tariff attitude.

So, you seem to understand the problem. This is not about lack of domestic US talent. This is about disempowering US corporations from importing unnecessary labor to disadvantage US workers (who are currently facing an unfavorable domestic labor market).

Citations:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44880832 ("There is no requirement to demonstrate that you cannot find an American to do the job to get an H1b visa approved. If that person applies for a PERM position (needed to convert to a green card) there is. Hence the H1b is easy to game by employers to get cheap indentured servants. With PERM (converting to a green card) they try to hide the job postings so that people will not apply so that they can get the green card approved. Some of the tricks include putting ads in the newspaper, using esoteric websites and other media such as radio instead of job boards where tech people actually look for jobs. Some Americans who have trouble finding jobs in the current market took on a side project of scraping newspaper ads and these job boards and created https://www.jobs.now/ which lists these jobs. If enough Americans that meet the minimum qualifications apply for a listed job it stops the green card process for that position, usually for 6 months before the sponsor may try again. Also, there are a lot of stories about people getting O-1 visas via fake credential mills and research papers. Both can and are being gamed to get O-1's." -- u/lgleason)

Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45223719 - September 2025 (526 comments)

Job Listing Site Highlighting H-1B Positions So Americans Can Apply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44892321 - August 2025 (108 comments)

H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025 (4 comments)

Jury finds Cognizant discriminated against US workers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42385000 - December 2024 (65 comments)

How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 - July 2024 (57 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42454509 (additional citations)

jltsiren5• 10 months ago

I think it will mostly impact cap-exempt employers. For example, universities typically use H-1B for new faculty hires, as the visa is available quickly and without too much effort. But if the visa costs $100k, the university will probably skip international applicants, because the hiring department rarely has that much money it is allowed to use freely.

Research universities could probably use O-1, as the requirements for O-1A are lower than the bar for getting a tenure-track position. So they would effectively pay $10k to a lawyer rather than $100k to the government.

ribit• 10 months ago

Yep. My wife just started as a professor (humanities) and she entered on H1B visa last week, as green card takes years to obtain. I have been offered a teaching job at the same institution as a partner hire and they have filed an H1B petition for me.

Unless they clarify that education is exempt from these rules, my wife will surely have to quit her new job. She is supposed to go on fieldwork later this year and she won’t be able to re-enter. Not to mention I can kiss my lecturer offer good bye. This is an incredibly retarded situation.

esalman6• 10 months ago

Yes it means less talent.

Want proof? Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella were all on H1B visa at some point.

Saline9515• 10 months ago

If you believe in the laws of supply and demand, it means lower wages for local workers, as they have to compete with foreign competitors. In the long term, lower incentives for local workers to get into the sectors hiring H1Bs. Those sectors will then complain about the lack of local workers and ask for more H1bs.

angott• 10 months ago

I wonder how much of this was driven by public/media interest in the H-1B program rather than technical policy concerns.

For instance, there is still no action taken about the L-1B visa classification, which is a lot more open to abuse than H-1B is. It has no cap on how many visas can be issued every year. It also has no obligation to pay the employee a prevailing wage, no requirement for a bachelor's degree to qualify, and it cannot be transferred to a different employer (which means employees are stuck with their sponsor until they qualify for a green card).

slaw2• 10 months ago

$100k fee is a good start. Trump doesn't know L-1B exists.

rimzy• 10 months ago

Great News!

Now Trump needs to go after all the "founders" scamming the US through their O-1 visa. That shit needs to end yesterday.

sciencesama3• 10 months ago

They are inventing new scamming ways !

Snoozus• 10 months ago

What's the scam?

gowld2• 10 months ago

It was advertised on HN last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40082864

https://extraordinaryaliens.substack.com/p/o1-visa-hacks-for...

colesantiago• 10 months ago

This is the next grift target into the US.

givemeethekeys• 10 months ago

It hasn't happened yet. All the big money in America says that it will either never happen or won't last longer than a few weeks.

famerica4• 10 months ago

Anyone who has been paying attention to anything could tell you the same thing.

lastofthemojito• 10 months ago

The TACO president doesn't just back away from a bad idea without announcing he got something in return. He'll declare exemptions or delays for companies or industries that kowtow to him in some way - maybe he'll demand these companies make contributions to "non-woke" engineering universities or remove "DEI hires" from their boards, who knows.

aylmao5• 10 months ago

Unrelated, but I don't get the "taco" thing. I'm Mexican— it's a head-scratcher that people use the name of our food as an insult to Trump. He doesn't look like a taco, and the acronym is a sentence, not an adjective/phrase, so it doesn't make much sense spelled out in most contexts.

llm_nerd10• 10 months ago

Eh, Trump's administration is so cravenly corrupt and incompetent in every facet and manner that I think it will happen, purely because it's one of those "throw 'em a bone" tactics for the commoners. It's the same reason the aggressive ICE actions have redoubled.

And FWIW, I think the H1B program, like the TFW program in Canada, is outrageously corrupt and has zero legitimacy, and the laughable foundations that people use to justify it -- namely a completely unsubstantiated labour shortage -- is such a ridiculous lie that it deserves to be obliterated. It is a way for the ultra-rich to stomp on worker rights and compensation.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

I think the H1B program [...] has zero legitimacy

That's demonstrably false, even just by my own experience with people, so not sure I can take what you're saying seriously.

Yes, there's corruption and abuse, but I've also worked with some fantastic, excellent, smart, ambitious, hard-working people on H-1B visas. They would not have been in the US without it.

I've also worked with some mediocre fools who were on H-1B visas. That's the problem we should be focusing on, and there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

charles_f3• 10 months ago

I'm not saying that I don't agree with the apparent logic, but the same argument was made about tariffs, yet here they are and there they staid.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

the same argument was made about tariffs

By all accounts those arguments were pretty correct, no? The tariff rollout was delayed multiple times, changed multiple times. What we have now doesn't very much look like what Trump announced back in March/April.

And the tariffs may disappear soon, depending on SCOTUS. Not that I depend on SCOTUS doing the right thing anymore, but I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised on this one.

password543214• 10 months ago

The cat is out of the bag. Either tension is going to keep rising on their country turning into an all you can eat buffet or something is going to change fast. This is not nothing.

Animats4• 10 months ago

$100K per person, or per company? Does Tata just pay $100K once?

markasoftware• 10 months ago

per application, so per person

ac29• 10 months ago

The answer to your question is in the first sentence of the article

Animats4• 10 months ago

"Sept 19 (Reuters) - "Reuters was not immediately able to establish details of who the fee would apply to or how it would be administered."

So, details to follow.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-09-19/trump-...

breadwinner15• 10 months ago

$25K annual fee per H1B worker as opposed to $100K one-time would have made more sense. It would have made even more sense to have employers compete (within their own sector, such as tech, aerospace, etc.) such that whoever offers the highest salary will get the H1B worker.

gowld2• 10 months ago

Why within a sector? make everyone compete, and we'll find if any local workers want the high paying jobs. The H1B count can be increased to cover jobs that locals don't want even at high salaries.

breadwinner15• 10 months ago

Why would locals not want high paying jobs? The question is whether qualified people can be found locally or not.

azemetre2• 10 months ago

Because there are some H1B workers that come over as translators or other non-tech professions. Like if you need a translator that speaks Swahili for some NGO it's way easier to hire a native Swahili speaker than possibly finding a qualified American that also speaks Swahili.

I do find it interesting that these trillion dollar companies can't find domestic workers, at their level of wealth they should simply be forced to pay for the education of Americans to create a funnel of workers rather than exporting this societal need to other nations.

TMWNN5• 10 months ago

$25K annual fee per H1B worker as opposed to $100K one-time

It's $100K per employee per year.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

I think it's actually per visa. I know the linked article says per year, but other sources I'm glancing at seem to indicate it's an application/renewal fee. Actually, it's not even clear that you have to pay again to renew after 3 years; it might just be the initial fee.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

This isn't about what makes sense. This is about finding a punchy number that sounds big and makes Trump's base happy. "$100k fee (that covers 3/6 years)" sounds more impressive than "$33k per year" or "$17k per year", so that's what they went with.

Ultimately this isn't going to do anything to reform the H-1B program; this is just trump "doing something", which he'll claim as a success (and his base will eat up), even if it does nothing or makes things worse.

newfriend9• 10 months ago

It's 100k per person per year. And I am ecstatic.

snake_doc3• 10 months ago

Mafia behavior continues… (not my observation, but the Texas senator’s Ted Cruz[1]).

$100k is a big pizzo (protection fee)!

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-19/ted-cruz-...

“That’s right outta ‘Goodfellas,’ that’s right out of a mafioso going into a bar saying, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said, using the iconic New York accent associated with the Mafia.

mschuster91• 10 months ago

It does go to the government and not to Trump's personal wallet (like the memecoins and lavish gift), it's just a tax that's just not being called a tax, and frankly it's a good idea. The current abuse of H1B doesn't work out positively for anyone but the companies making a boatload of money on exploiting people.

snake_doc3• 10 months ago

Oh? And taxes can’t be used to buy influence and votes? How naive… Money is fungible… one pocket into another

Exhibit 1: Tariff revenues to bail out American farmers: https://www.ft.com/content/0267b431-2ec9-4ca4-9d5c-5abf61f2b...

crooked-v2• 10 months ago

Stopped clock, twice a day, etc. H-1Ba are supposed to be for difficult-to-find specialists, not generic tech workers.

gwbennett• 10 months ago

100%

YetAnotherNick2• 10 months ago

H-1Ba are supposed to be for difficult-to-find specialists

In my understanding H-1B is supposed to be for generic workers, rather than O1 which is for people with extraordinary ability in their field. That's why there is limit, lottery and high application fees.

GartzenDeHaes• 10 months ago

H-1B is for difficult-to-find specialists and O-1 is for people with extraordinary ability in their field.

H-2B is for ordinary workers.

Bayko• 10 months ago

So now just outsource to those countries instead??

arcbyte• 10 months ago

Tariffs on offshoring are next.

JumpCrisscross• 10 months ago

Tariffs on offshoring are next

Unlikely. America has a massive services export surplus.

saaaaaam• 10 months ago

Wasn’t that already effectively put in place with the changes to the exemptions on how R&D is treated for tax purposes? (I’m not in the US so this may have evolved now, I’m not sure.)

breadwinner15• 10 months ago

This is good news for China: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3318178/tale...

nextworddev6• 10 months ago

Lol, you really think the h1bs will go to China to work 996?

snake_doc3• 10 months ago

SCMP is owned by Alibaba, which is subject to the purview of the Chinese Central Government [1].

[1] https://www.cecc.gov/agencies-responsible-for-censorship-in-...

root_axis2• 10 months ago

They could already outsource for cheaper than the cost of an H1B

toomuchtodo14• 10 months ago

Ohio senator introduces 25% tax on companies that outsource jobs overseas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45146528 - September 2025 (68 comments)

OBBB signed: Reinstates immediate expensing for U.S.-based R&D - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44469124 - July 2025 (370 comments) [15 year amortization required for international R&D]

Workaccount2• 10 months ago

The white collar version of ICE enforcement.

LAC-Tech3• 10 months ago

The latest updates to Windows were just too much for him.

mister_mort• 10 months ago

If this is truly per application, the companies that try to boost their chances with the lottery by creating multiple applications for the same person are going to get hit hard. Phantom companies that only exist on paper so people can tweak the probabilities are now liabilities.

We'll see a rebalancing for sure.

ebiester2• 10 months ago

In one sense they won't - it will reduce the queue enormously.

But you'll really need that person. It will also kill OPT in general.

DeRock2• 10 months ago

the companies that try to boost their chances with the lottery by creating multiple applications for the same person

This was already addressed by changing the odds to be per unique candidate, not application, thereby reducing the incentive to game it. More context here: https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-announces...

namirez2• 10 months ago

Unfortunately that doesn't work in practice since the consulting firms submit multiple applications for multiple candidates to get one candidate in. I believe charging extra for each application is a good way to discourage this practice but I'm not sure if $100k is the right number or not. To me it seems a bit too high.

throwaway219450• 10 months ago

I find it odd that the H-1B has no per-country limits, which would have avoided all of this from the start.

ActorNightly• 10 months ago

Ah the conservative mindset:

When faced with an arbitrarily small, insignificant problem, in lieu of the status quo, the solution he/she advocates is to completely dismantle the status quo without any form and reason instead of actually focusing on the solution.

I.e punishment over progress.

ozozozd3• 10 months ago

To be fair, the true conservative mindset would “not tear down the fence, if you don’t know what it’s there for.”

sigwinch4• 10 months ago

It’s per-year.

b_e_n_t_o_n• 10 months ago

H-1B visas are already costly to obtain, ranging from about $1,700 to $4,500

oof, that's a big price increase.

y-curious2• 10 months ago

My one concern is that the salary discrepancy minus the $100k might still be worth it for FAANG specifically.

SV_BubbleTime7• 10 months ago

That's the point. If you really deserve it with your skills, then 100k is nothing.

LPisGood12• 10 months ago

Why is that a concern?

YetAnotherNick2• 10 months ago

I don't get the negative points here to be honest. To me, it seems better than lottery to be honest for all parties involved.

cogman108• 10 months ago

IMO, the fee is the wrong thing that needs adjusting. It's the salary that should be adjusted. The minimum salary for an H1B should be $200k. It's something like 50k right now which is ridiculous especially with all the restrictions an applicant is under. It both suppresses wages and abuses the worker.

dbish2• 10 months ago

Why not both?

cogman108• 10 months ago

Because I don't really want to penalize a company for bringing in foreign labor. If a company can't find someone for a specific job or role then I don't care if they go abroad to find that person.

What I care about is the current system isn't being used to find hard to find labor, it's used to bring in cheap labor in an abusive situation.

We as a nation are really better off if we bring in the best in the world to work here with a cushy salary.

nine_k4• 10 months ago

Can every industry pay $200k? I bet software, AI, or finance would be okay paying $200k, while e.g. hardware, aerospace, or biotech would have a harder time.

The idea of requiring a high salary is reasonable, but I'd make it rather e.g. 120% of the median salary in a particular industry.

wahnfrieden3• 10 months ago

If they can pay a $100k fee, they can pay a similarly higher wage instead

cogman108• 10 months ago

Who would have a harder time? The company that wants to bring in employees? Sure. But I'm also sure that the top experts would be lining up to take such a job. The companies wouldn't struggle to find someone abroad.

The percentage could be reasonable, but I think it's too easily gamed. You just know the company would try and say they are bringing in entry level people for whatever they want and use whatever lowest median they could find. There needs to be a fairly significant minimum salary to avoid such monkey business.

An H1B job should be cushy. Otherwise, the company should simply raise salaries to find local workers.

Jcampuzano22• 10 months ago

Dare I say - If you're desperate for skilled workers, they should probably be highly compensated due to simple supply and demand.

If you can't find somebody skilled enough here to work for 200k or less, then you should probably be paying 200k or more since you're looking for a role that is niche and low supply.

consumer4512• 10 months ago

Since we have relatively reliable economic data on median income per industry, it would be really stupid not to use that data in a formula such as the one you suggested.

To go further, I believe there’s good data on cost of living, geographically. It would probably be wise to use that in the formula as well, so as not to disadvantage smaller areas, where cost-of-living and salaries are lower.

ApolloFortyNine2• 10 months ago

The entire market works through supply and demand. The basic idea is if you can't find someone willing to work for $x an hour you have to raise x until you find someone.

The h1bs are often used to abuse that system by just importing someone willing to work for x, with the added bonus of it being very hard for them to ever leave your company.

anigbrowl5• 10 months ago

All things like this should be percentages/ratios. The idea of using $ amounts in legislation and regulation is fundamentally foolish.

secondcoming• 10 months ago

Having a $200k minimum salary will just see outsourcing to Asia / Eastern Europe.

waynesonfire2• 10 months ago

Why is that a problem? Thats how the program should work, to recruit talent wherever it's found.

MangoToupe• 10 months ago

That's going to happen regardless.

curt15• 10 months ago

Is there a special tax on income generated by off-shore workers? That would be the software analogue of tariffs on physical imports.

wahnfrieden3• 10 months ago

You may have policy opinions but what would incentivize the current admin to require more money given to foreign workers vs keeping wages low (which also helps suppress wages for non-foreign worker peers industry-wide) while collecting more fees for federal use?

ericmcer2• 10 months ago

Is it too complex to just look at the companies taxes and be like... "Hey you are paying H1B workers 25% less than their peers. You get hit with a fine".

If you couldn't undercut H1B salaries there is little incentive to use them except for their desired purpose (you can't find any local workers).

OkayPhysicist• 10 months ago

Even paid identically, a company might prefer H1Bs for retention purposes. Having an indentured serf who's difficult for other companies to hire and is at constant risk of deportation if they lose their job is a winning prospect for the worst companies.

BobbyJo• 10 months ago

A great way to circumvent this is to build a large headquarters in an undesirable location. "No American software engineers are applying for my job in <random midwest town where I will be the only software employeer>! I need H1bs!"

breitling• 10 months ago

What if they're bringing the average salary down for everyone else because they can, thanks to h1b?

rs1862• 10 months ago

The nurse that helped save your life at ER might be on H1B getting paid $80k a year.

jpadkins13• 10 months ago

the counterfactual is 'is there an equally qualified nurse who didn't get the position?' There is a lot of under-employment for highly qualified US citizens.

cogman108• 10 months ago

That nurse may have just done their 6th 12h shift as well. Which they have to do or risk deportation.

aaronnw2• 10 months ago

Maybe more talented Americans would become nurses if the pay met the demand.

mancerayder8• 10 months ago

Do we know what percentage of H1B's are NOT in the tech industry?

fred_is_fred5• 10 months ago

It's not in this article but in others that this will be addressed.

"The proposal would increase the wage floor for H-1B visa recipients from $60,000 to $150,000, eliminate the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, and replace the current lottery-based selection process with a highest-bidder system."

EDIT: This is a proposal by 1 senator - not Trump. https://www.newsweek.com/h-1b-visa-change-proposal-2132484

drdec2• 10 months ago

I would appreciate some links if you have them

fred_is_fred5• 10 months ago

This article implies the minimum will be tripled. https://www.newsweek.com/h-1b-visa-change-proposal-2132484

EDIT: This is a proposal by 1 senator - not Trump.

fogzen• 10 months ago

IMO the minimum salary should be $0 and Americans should be free to hire whoever they want, without paying a fee and asking permission from the government. Non-citizens should be subject to the same minimum wage and workplace regulations as everywhere else. Whoever wants to come to America should be able to freely come, treated the same as anyone else.

But that would be a free market that respected human rights, and Americans don't want that! Equality? Freedom? That's just marketing!

danenania• 10 months ago

If the non-citizen worker can't change jobs as easily as an American can, you still don't really have freedom.

czl6• 10 months ago

Whoever wants to come to America should be able to freely come, treated the same as anyone else.

So just open USA borders to anyone that passes screening (security / health / etc)?

What about gov subsidized welfare / healthcare / education / ...? Would you end all that? If not end it how would you handle the situation with current citizens vs the influx of foreigners who will expect these things be provided for them? And if those who show up start to vote for communism or some other ism that you do not like what will you do?

s1artibartfast2• 10 months ago

Nobody wants that kind of equality, just like they don't want other people to have equal access to their bank account or home.

rangestransform• 10 months ago

my country should prioritize its own people first, second, third, fourth, fifth... and anyone else an incredibly distant last, if at all

woah2• 10 months ago

The H1B program should be scrapped and replaced with a program where anyone (who passes some background check) can pay $100k a year for a green card

Braxton19805• 10 months ago

Rich drug dealers from corrupt countries rejoice! your green card is in the mail

mavelikara2• 10 months ago

It's something like 50k right now which is ridiculous

It is ridiculous. Do you have a citation for the $50K number?

beefnugs• 10 months ago

They arent "trying to fix it" they are setting it up as corruptible, game-able, politically weaponizable

waynesonfire2• 10 months ago

Fantastic news, not so much for Mr... Na .. Na... Not ganna work here anymore. Should add a yearly fee as well.

ChrisMarshallNY• 10 months ago

Boy, that's going to be a popular rule. I'll bet K Street is getting their engines gassed and greased for this.

I'm deeply unhappy about H1B abuse. I've watched it happen, in front of me. It's definitely a real thing. But I also worry about the legit folks, that want to take advantage of it.

consumer4512• 10 months ago

Yeah, this is one of those things where the abuses have real negative consequences for our country.

However, when used by people that we (theoretical, rational economic actors) actually want here… those truly exceptional people who may not look exceptional on paper… Well, getting those people here has been one of the magical things about the United States of America, so far.

Messing with that is dangerous. It needs to be done, but it needs to be done very surgically.

HardCodedBias3• 10 months ago

Interesting, seems quite steep.

Does the extension also cost 100k?

I don't know the statutory authority under which this is being done, if this is true it will come out in the next few days.

I would have preferred a simple auction, seems like the most reasonable solution.

HardCodedBias3• 10 months ago

Later reporting is saying that it will be 100k / year. If so that's quite substantial.

That will make the program non-viable for a large percentage of the people who use it today.

I suspect that the o1 visa would get far more use if this change were enacted.

It seems to high. Again: why not make it an auction?

franciscojs• 10 months ago

May be good for remote roles?

quacked• 10 months ago

The way I see it is that US companies cannot simultaneously compete with foreign workers who are as good or better than US workers but are willing to work harder for less money, and also retain a high QoL for US workers. If US companies want to compete on actual merit and cost, they have to let US QoL take a hit. If they want to retain US QoL, they can't compete.

Something's gotta give, and the endless dancing with partial offshoring and H1Bs is band-aiding over two options: a bloodbath for American workers where competing for their jobs is actually opened up to the globe, or a massive, nationalist set of labor protections to stop other countries from bidding on work asked for by the US markets. Making H1Bs more costly is a little stronger than a Band-Aids, but not by much.

checker6592• 10 months ago

I think this is great news for countries like Canada and UK.

leakycap11• 10 months ago

It is incredible to me that there are hundreds of US-centric comments and yours is the only one I saw who recognized the benefit for basically every other country people want to live and work in.

Izikiel433• 10 months ago

Canada

It's not doing really well though, COL is sky high, and wages are low.

oytis7• 10 months ago

Not for tech workers from these countries though.

yodsanklai7• 10 months ago

If more jobs are created in these countries, it doesn't mean the local tech workers will be replaced.

phatfish• 10 months ago

Hardly, the Indian government weaponises their diaspora in the same way China does.

y-curious2• 10 months ago

Oh no, Canada, don't take my low-paid, equally-skilled and desperate-to-stay-at-one-company competition from me! /s

the_real_cher5• 10 months ago

haha so true

declan_roberts6• 10 months ago

They already pay 50%-70% less there than in America. Not much juice left to squeeze.

pyuser5833• 10 months ago

UK is insanely hard to immigrate to. Canada is getting more and more difficult by the day.

This insanity seems collective.

dustbunny2• 10 months ago

Canada is getting more difficult

How so?

checker6592• 10 months ago

UK is not hard to immigrate to. You just need to pay a heft sum for the visa and NHS surcharge.

Tiktaalik4• 10 months ago

Seriously as someone with no interest in moving to the USA this is fantastic news.

Open up studios in British Columbia and hire the relatively cheaper labour. It's on the same time zone as Silicon Valley. It's a no brainer.

Jcampuzano22• 10 months ago

With how inconsistent and on and off this administration has been I expect this will probably never happen, or there will be exemptions to this for every company that this was most abused for and just sucks up to the president.

Until anything actually happens there's no reason to take this president at his word.

Braxton19805• 10 months ago

Until anything actually happens there's no reason to take this president at his word.

Why? Trump was known for "telling it as it is" so shouldn't the assumption be that it will happen?

dragonwriter2• 10 months ago

Trump was known for "telling it as it is"

AFAICT, the people that promoted him that way often had mutually incompatible interpretations of what he was saying that happened to fit their own biases coming in, which they felt like Trump was agreeing with.

And as the rubber of vague, contradictory, and incoherent statements hit the road of substantive action, that impression became a lot less common.

yodsanklai7• 10 months ago

There's been tons of silly statements from Trump that never got implemented.

pigpag• 10 months ago

$100k filing fee cannot be legally viable. But I support the direction in general. There is virtually no gate control, causing the visa category to be flooded by fraudulent applications (including unqualified hires, duplicate lottery shots). H1B visas are initially designed for economic efficiency, so using monetary means to control it is justifiable.

bamboozled5• 10 months ago

It depends how this is implemented but I think that only “rich” people including criminals will use this as a way to bring undesirable people in. Again it spends on implementation but when you’re “paying” for someone to enter , is there extra leeway on the approval ? How strict will the entry requirements be ?

tamimio3• 10 months ago

There’s no gatekeeping on any tech job, and it’s on purpose so big corps can abuse the system and lower the wages, while they make billions. It should be regulated to prevent abuse, that’s hurting everyone except corps.

jatins2• 10 months ago

While the stated intention is to prevent abuse by consultancies, I think this effectively kills the H1B program. Who will be able to afford this?

Not startups. 100k is like 75% of base comp in most bay area startups

Among BigTech, maybe like ~20 companies will be willing to pay this per employee.

nine_k4• 10 months ago

So startups often bring in H1B employees? What prevents them from hiring the same great people remotely?

pcl3• 10 months ago

Time zones are probably the biggest limiting factor, followed by remoteness. In my experience, it's really hard and pretty slow to onboard a remote worker if you haven't already worked with that person in the past. And at a startup, you don't usually have the luxury of time on your side.

giveita5• 10 months ago

If you hire someone in say Australia you would be subject to its fair work act, and its courts. You'd need to sus out the tax situation too.

What if they are a contractor? Well usually the law treats these things like ducks and asks if they quack. If it quacks like employment it is subject to that law.

zer00eyz6• 10 months ago

Not startups. 100k is like 75%

I dont know of a single person here on a visa making less than 150k salary. They get the same stock, bonus and benefits that every one else gets.... it's well over 300k to have that staff member when all is said and done.

You're not adding on 100k a year, you're adding on 100k for a 3-6 year employee.

Even if that works out to 20k a year, it's pocket change in the grand scheme of things.

leakycap11• 10 months ago

I don't think there is any reasonable evidence to suggest that most workers here on H1-B visas make more than 150k median salary, much less that they are awarded similar options as other employees.

I'm glad to hear this has been the environment you've worked in, but I don't believe it reflects the majority of skilled workers in the US on H1-B.

jatins2• 10 months ago

I dont know of a single person here on a visa making less than 150k salary

Don't have data on this but anecdotally the base salary range for most YC startup jobs advertised here is around 150k-200k based on what I see.

You are right that it does amortize if the employee stays long enough.

deadbabe3• 10 months ago

If it’s pocket change then why not also pay the domestic employees $20k more a year?

peripitea4• 10 months ago

If you listen to the interview Trump & team gave, it's $100k per employee per year.

robofanatic• 10 months ago

I think this effectively kills the H1B program.

That exactly is Trump’s intention, no?

jpadkins13• 10 months ago

No, his campaign pledges stated: 6. Ensure Our Legal Immigration System Puts American Workers First Republicans will prioritize Merit-based immigration, ensuring those admitted to our Country contribute positively to our Society and Economy, and never become a drain on Public Resources. We will end Chain Migration, and put American Workers first! https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/?_gl=1*18i1due*_gcl_au*...

He has been pretty good at sticking to his campaign promises.

Sevii2• 10 months ago

It's not a bad thing if FAANG gets every single H1B visa. There has long been a complaint that FAANG is willing to pay 300k+/head in salaries but instead Cognizant gets the visa and pays 60k/head. If we have a limited visa pool it makes no sense to give visas to low paying employers until FAANG is completely saturated.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

Do startups often hire H-1Bs? I've only worked for a few, but they didn't start hiring H-1Bs until they we're fairly sizeable and had taken on a couple rounds of funding.

Certainly the $100k fee is going to make the application much more expensive (though you can amortize it across 3 or 6 years, right?), but it was already not exactly cheap to deal with the legal costs around H-1B employees.

Among BigTech, maybe like ~20 companies will be willing to pay this per employee.

I think that's a vast, vast underestimation. Most companies, even not-so-big ones, will continue to pay it. Maybe they'll think twice a bit more for future hires, and try harder to find someone local, which I don't think is a bad thing. Or, of course, this could just represent another factor in downward wage pressure across the board, which is bad.

jusgu• 10 months ago

It’s 100k per year not per application. So you won’t be able to amortize across 3-6 years

kubb• 10 months ago

Does the company still pay the 100k if the applicant loses the lottery?

dgs_sgd4• 10 months ago

If you read the article you would see their plan is to apply the fee on entry to the US, after the candidate has been selected by the lottery.

pg_bot• 10 months ago

Just make it an auction that runs every month.

juancn• 10 months ago

This will just encourage companies to off-shore more.

declan_roberts6• 10 months ago

It's already 70%-80% cheaper to hire offshore. How much more juice is left to squeeze?

throwawa142233• 10 months ago

Then it's time to start seizing these companies assets. American corporations exist to benefit the US and US people.

zerosizedweasle5• 10 months ago

That's just insane, do you honestly think they will just allow that? They are American companies, vulnerable to the power of the government.

jppope3• 10 months ago

the tax code was recently adjusted. All foreign R&D needs to be depreciated over 15 years, you can depreciate immediately for US based R&D.

oncallthrow• 10 months ago

The great and good of the tech industry spent the last year sucking up to Trump and this is how he repays them

leakycap11• 10 months ago

Will they learn? I doubt it.

RealityVoid7• 10 months ago

They saw the writing on the wall. I don't think they _like him_ but they need to manage the inevitable. When you have an autocrat, you bend the knee or get destroyed.

wolfcola• 10 months ago

just a way to extract further concessions, rinse and repeat

cuttothechase4• 10 months ago

As a side effect, this could reduce the pipeline of foreign students coming in on F1 with plans to transition to a work visa over time.

F1 -> OPT -> H1 bridge is way more expensive now.

Universities are bound to lose a ton of money due to this. Those outside of the top 50 will likely get hammered.

crznthndr• 10 months ago

This is a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Yes, it brings in more income for the government at the expense of universities.

It’s a great way to remove h1b fraud and abuse but you do burn down a bit of your garage in the process of getting rid of the rat.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

"At the expense of universities" may not be the plan for this one, but to the current administration, it's certainly a bonus.

stackskipton2• 10 months ago

Is it really at expense of universities? From what I understand, most are getting Master Degrees but very few are doing research. I've seen plenty of H-1B coworkers with Master Degrees but very few did research, it was just extra computer science courses.

johanyc9• 10 months ago

Just like tariffs and the tax cuts

malshe2• 10 months ago

Yes, 100%. Also, many universities will find it impossible to recruit new faculty as most Ph.D. students are international students who end up working in American universities.

daft_pink4• 10 months ago

American Universities are exempt from H1B fees. Anyone receiving an H1B to work at a US University is exempt from the fee and exempt from the lottery.

daft_pink4• 10 months ago

I'm a little bit confused by the text of the proclamation. It says people outside the country have to pay a $100k fee. Isn't an F1 student on OPT inside the country and not subject to the fee? Or are they required to leave the country to apply and are subject to it.

The proclamation gives me the impression that foreign students are exempt from the fee.

cuttothechase4• 10 months ago

Anyone on H1B who is working in US or is arriving into US for work will have to pay. F1 on OPT is F1 Visa and not on H1B. If they choose to get a H1B at the same time, if they use it to work then they have to pay.

johanyc9• 10 months ago

They are not directly affected when applying for h1b but think about it what this means to both employers and students. It's a signal that immigration policy can change on a whim. For employers, hiring foreigners has always been cumbersome and now it's even worse due to the uncertainty. For students who starts working on h1b, you are in "immigration jail" in the US for years

frogblast2• 10 months ago

IMO the problem is that H1B employees are stuck at the employer for the duration of their green card process, and so end up both paid lower and unable to escape abuse.

I think a very high application fee is actually part of a good solution, but is useless by itself.

A flawed proposal:

* Dispense with the 'need to search for a qualified American' which just complicates the process without achieving the stated goal, and includes a ton of legal and bureaucratic expense and time.

* A large application fee paid from the company to the federal government.

* The worker's relocation expenses must also be covered by the company.

* The worker gets a 10 year work authorization on the day of their arrival.

* The worker gets to leave their sponsoring employer on the day of their arrival, if they choose to. The employment contract may not include any clawbacks of anything.

The latter bullet is the key one. That's the one that uses market forces to truly enforces this person is being paid above market wages, and is being treated well, at their sponsoring employer. (which in turn means they don't undercut existing labor in the market).

It also means that employers don't really look abroad unless there really is a shortage of existing labor. But when there is a true shortage and you're willing to spend, the door is open to act quickly.

The obvious defect is that it creates an incentive for the employee to pay the federal fee themselves (hidden) plus more for the privilege of getting sponsored, and the company basically being a front for this process. Effectively buying a work authorization for themselves. I'm not sure how to overcome that. Then again, the current system could also suffer that defect (I don't know how common it is).

bogdan2• 10 months ago

* The worker gets to leave their sponsoring employer on the day of their arrival, if they choose to. The employment contract may not include any clawbacks of anything.

You almost had me there.

kelseyfrog2• 10 months ago

The alternative is tying employment to freedom of mobility.

We can do better than bonding people by immigration status. This might be controversial, but I don't think should be bonding people at all.

leakycap11• 10 months ago

No company would ever sponsor someone if the last bullet is part of the deal. You're just killing the visa program another way with that wishlist item alone.

mcny2• 10 months ago

If you just want someone and not this particular applicant, yes but if you want a particular person to work for you, you will sponsor them regardless of this bullet point.

Retric3• 10 months ago

Not for an interchange cog. However you can keep someone with a golden handcuffs deal at above market rates if there’s some reason to bring that specific person.

jltsiren5• 10 months ago

That's pretty common in Europe. Temporary work permits can be valid either for a specific job or a specific industry. In the latter case, as long as you can find a job that meets the requirements in a reasonable time, you can quit and stay in the country.

But those work permits mostly concern the individual and the government. The employer is not as much sponsoring them as providing evidence.

eastbound• 10 months ago

I thought there was no-one else on the market? If you think it will kill the visa program, that means you thought hiring underpaid developers was the goal of the visa program. No-one would change companies if if get paid decently: You leave a bad boss, but you can stay with a with a 10-15% lower-than-market salary just because of the friction of changing (Cue the downvotes: “I’m changing for a cent more” - yes you do when you have energy but most employees absolutely don’t). And employees will stay because they need time to settle in the new country and the welcoming company is generally equipped to make integration easier for newcomers.

topkai22• 10 months ago

If they are using the program as intended they would. They are supposed to be looking for skills that are impossible to find in the US. If they are offering a good deal to the employee then the employee should stay, just like someone with full work authorization would.

If they are just using the program to pay less than they otherwise would for labor that does exist in the us, well, then we have another issue.

I would modify the proposal to include a larger annual fee rather than an application fee, so that the initially sponsoring company isn’t solely bearing the cost. There should also be a floor pay rate for the visa holder, something the 75th or 80th percentile of both the company and of income in the MSA the visa holder is located in.

behringer2• 10 months ago

Perfect. More Americans get jobs.

nbngeorcjhe• 10 months ago

Stopping companies from hiring quasi-indentured servants is a good thing

hamstergene• 10 months ago

Locals have always been allowed to quit the new job on day 1, and it has never been a crisis for employers.

A company that is confident it is offering worthy salary and career should have no extra reason to worry a foreign worker will quit during first week, than that a local worker would do the same thing.

The only difference a fee would make under such conditions is that locals become cheaper to hire, which is the point.

nrmitchi• 10 months ago

This is not true at all. Employers will still sponsor talent that they need.

If you are sponsoring an employee for a visa and "it's a great thing they can't quit, it's the main thing that's keeping them here!", then you are abusing the system and should be excluded anyways.

materielle• 10 months ago

Wait, so if we give the foreign workers the same at will employment rights as Americans, then they are no longer interested?

I thought they needed these foreign workers because no American could do the job?

pythonic_hell• 10 months ago

Almost all European visa programs have the last bullet point with the stipulation that they have 90 days to find another visa sponsorship job if they leave their sponsor.

BeFlatXIII• 10 months ago

Then kill it.

abfan1127• 10 months ago

who in their right mind would shell out 100k + relocation and not require some level of commitment?

atomicnumber3• 10 months ago

People who are going to pay them enough money that they stay specifically because of the money?

The whole reason most people stay at jobs? (Theoretically)

That's the whole point. It distorts market forces when companies are allowed to just trap people.

nothercastle4• 10 months ago

If the talent is that good and you are paying above market you would. Not much different than a signing bonus

kevin_thibedeau6• 10 months ago

They had no problem offering 7-figure salaries to PhDs with research experience in AI a few years ago. Those are the exceptional workers the program was supposed to be bringing in the first place, not dime-a-dozen JS vibe coders.

Salgat2• 10 months ago

A company paying half a million annually to ensure this employee is retained. It's not meant for joe sixpack making $100k/yr as an underpaid consultant.

mlyle• 10 months ago

You never get someone to pay a large application fee without some kind of reasonable prospect of getting an exclusive right.

Else, if company A pays a $100k fee, company B has an incentive to give the worker $90,000 more to jump ship. And this devolves to no one paying the $100k fee.

Retric3• 10 months ago

Only if employees are actually interchangeable at the rate you’re paying. You might bring someone from oversees who knows your internal systems and is therefore worth far above market rates to your company relative to any other US company.

CobrastanJorji3• 10 months ago

What if we make the fee per-year? "It costs $10,000 to sponsor a new H1B immigrant's entry, and then it costs $5,000 per year per H-1B employee you have." H1-B holder is free to leave, and the cost of that happening to their employer is fairly low. Then let's say after 5 years of H1B employment, you automatically become eligible for citizenship, since you're clearly a valued worker.

jpadkins13• 10 months ago

hard disagree on the 'search for qualified citizen' or something to replace it. American policy needs to put Americans first.

Your other points are a good start. The main thing I would add is a floor on salary. H1B for a >$200k job makes some sense, it shows it's essential, the employer really wants to fill it and is having a hard time finding a US citizen. H1B for average or below average salaries is where the real abuse is. It's basically a form of indentured servitude.

Loughla• 10 months ago

The search for a qualified citizen is a sham process. Why shouldn't it be eliminated?

Make the incentives align with the priority, is what OP was getting at.

I'm with OP. Make it crazy expensive and let the employee quit if they want. Employers will immediately build the 'search for qualified citizens' into the process themselves.

frogblast2• 10 months ago

I agree with the protectionism aspect, to a degree. I also believe the current system does not achieve that in any way.

RealityVoid7• 10 months ago

You care about that, and you say that's the problem with H1B but I think that, really, a lot of tech workers in the US, and even a lot of the HN crowd _really_ care about protectionism. They want to suppress competition for their jobs, they want to keep their salaries high. I think this is myopic, but... What the heck, your country is speed running some interesting trajectory, this measure is the not even the biggest one on the radical measures pile.

mancerayder8• 10 months ago

What's myopic about keeping your salary high? Most people work for themselves an their families, not how their countries will appear economically in three decades? The situation of wage suppression helps investors and the owning class more than anything.

ericmcer2• 10 months ago

The last one is tricky because who is going to sponsor a worker at the price tag of 100k with no guarantee of performance. That is rife for abuse. You could get google to sponsor you and then hop to your friends startup on day one.

It is reasonable that if you get a temporary visa to perform work in another country, and you decide you don't want to do that work anymore, you leave. They aren't enslaved or anything if the work is not worth it you can attempt to transfer your status to another employer or leave.

ohyoutravel• 10 months ago

Thank you! I am so, so sick of not a single person in this thread (except you <3) looking out for Google’s shareholder value.

alexandre_m• 10 months ago

It seems the best way is to sponsor a seat and not a particular individual. That way you can rotate persons for the same paid h1-b seat.

pcl3• 10 months ago

The worker gets to leave their sponsoring employer on the day of their arrival, if they choose to. The employment contract may not include any clawbacks of anything.

I'm not familiar with current H1B law, but what prevents this from happening today? I've hired away an H1B holder in the past; the process wasn't particularly difficult.

My understanding at the time was that the tricky thing for H1B holders is that they can only have a 60-day gap of unemployment before they need to leave the country (or find a different visa resolution, I guess).

Now, if this new fee applies to H1B transfers as well as the initial application, well, that'll actually make it harder for H1B holders to change jobs.

phendrenad22• 10 months ago

It seems like there are two conflicting forces here. We want to ensure that we accept mostly high-skilled immigrants, so we can't do a pure lottery. But anything less than a pure lottery and immigrants are forced to "perform" or be kicked from the country, they will end up "both paid lower and unable to escape abuse" as you say. I don't know that it's possible to solve this satisfactorily.

arwhatever• 10 months ago

Index the H1B quantities issued to the unemployment rate per job specialty + geographic region?

czl6• 10 months ago

Why is a lottery necessary? There is a quota so why not fill it with those being paid the highest compensation? What's wrong with a market solution? It would bring in those who are most in demand. What better way to measure demand than prices?

bobthepanda• 10 months ago

The other thing I've heard is to sort the priority of who gets H1B by projected salary which would go a long way to eliminate anyone trying to get people to train their lower paid replacements.

kevin_thibedeau6• 10 months ago

Forcing citizens to train their foreign replacements is a violation of the terms of the program and illegal. Disney did that and, while not being held accountable, they were forced to reverse their criminal decision.

danielfoster• 10 months ago

The last bullet is a good idea but wouldn’t work in practice. Otherwise a company could hire someone else’s H1B worker for $10k more per year and avoid the $100k fee.

l___l4• 10 months ago

Maybe a company that hires someone else's H1B worker for $10k more per year in the first year has to pay the $100k fee and the first company gets their fee back.

basejumping• 10 months ago

They should set a very high salary as a criteria for hiring someone from abroad. You want exceptional people, not regular people that you pay less than the ones you find in your own country.

apwell235• 10 months ago

* Dispense with the 'need to search for a qualified American' which just complicates the process without achieving the stated goal, and includes a ton of legal and bureaucratic expense and time.

Most H1B go through perm process that does this already.

singron• 10 months ago

Instead of a $100k lump sum by the first employer, what about $10k each year by the current employer? Or even $2.5k each quarter? That way there is no particular incentive to poach a "paid-off" H1B employee, and the company doesn't have to worry about making a $100k investment up front.

wnc31412• 10 months ago

But then you can't make a placement firm selling access to the US job market.

duped2• 10 months ago

I mean I'll admit I'm a bit of a radical on this issue, but I think the most sensible work authorization policy is "you're welcome if you're not a criminal, terrorist, or public health risk, and on that last point here's some penicillin and a flu/covid shot, let us know when you're feeling better"

My ancestors came here ~140 years ago when the only "visa" process was a look in the mouth at Ellis Island. I don't see any fundamental reason why we need to have stricter regulations than that, and I reject dragging the Overton window further right on immigration.

Chinjut• 10 months ago

Hear, hear.

stackedinserter5• 10 months ago

In 3 months after implementing this policy there will be ports of entry full of people who paid any money to get to the US and that ready to share beds and work for $4/hour. Salaries will plummet, rent will skyrocket, crime will go up, quality of life will drop. Your neighbors will have to move out and new tenants will be 20+ people who don't speak your language and share none of your values.

Funny thing is those who opened the gate will be protected from consequences of their own policies in their gated communities.

That's what we see here in Canada after reckless immigration policies implemented by past government.

lurk2• 10 months ago

My ancestors came here ~140 years ago when the only "visa" process was a look in the mouth at Ellis Island

This is revisionist history. 140 years ago the Chinese Exclusion Act had already been in place for 3 years, and the Foran Act had just been passed. The high clearance rate of immigrants at Ellis Island had far more to do with preliminary screenings being conducted by transport companies, who were liable for the cost of deportation plus a fine.

gorbachev5• 10 months ago

IMO the problem is that H1B employees are stuck at the employer for the duration of their green card process, and so end up both paid lower and unable to escape abuse.

This is not true. Transferring your H1-B to another employer is entirely possible, the new employer will have to file the application as usual, but the application is not subject to the annual H1-B quotas.

At least this was the way it was several years ago. I doubt the process has changed since.

jonny_eh2• 10 months ago

Would they now have to also pay the $1k fee for a "transfer"? AFAIK, it's considered a new application, but as you stated, its excluded from the quota/lottery.

truncate4• 10 months ago

> IMO the problem is that H1B employees are stuck at the employer for the duration of their green card process, and so end up both paid lower and unable to escape abuse.

This is not true. Typically you want to stay until i140 which for me took 1 year or so back in 2020. If I want to switch there are multiple other reasons I'd end up delaying the switch anyway (wait for vest, bonus etc ...)

Aurornis2• 10 months ago

* The worker gets to leave their sponsoring employer on the day of their arrival, if they choose to. The employment contract may not include any clawbacks of anything.

This would be workable if it also results in the person losing their visa. There must be some downside for the employee, otherwise it's an invitation for abuse.

If the worker gets to keep their visa then it's just a backdoor way to get a company to pay for their visa and relocation so they can immediately quit and then go do some other job they actually want (at no expense to the next employer).

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

The final scenario you describe already happens with immigrant visas. Once you have your Green Card you are free to quit the sponsoring employer and work for whoever you want.

kelvinjps3• 10 months ago

Your proposal is the same as shutting down the program, no company will take this? Like what's the benefit?

delusional2• 10 months ago

Isn't getting specialized workers (who you supposedly can't hire from the national talent pool) incentive enough? My understanding of the H1B system is that it was supposed to be a "last resort, exit hatch" sort of a programme.

never_inline• 10 months ago

It also means that employers don't really look abroad unless there really is a shortage of existing labor. But when there is a true shortage and you're willing to spend, the door is open to act quickly.

You underestimate the ability of INFY/TCS etc.. to game these laws.

gchamonlive• 10 months ago

IMO the problem is that H1B employees are stuck at the employer for the duration of their green card process, and so end up both paid lower and unable to escape abuse.
I think a very high application fee is actually part of a good solution, but is useless by itself.

This is always going to be bad if you compare to what any functioning democracy should be doing in this situation which to revert the deterioration of wages and punish/reeducate abusers. I admit it's idealistic, but if you could suspend the need for political realism here a moment there is a chance you could see this is only logical.

aylmao5• 10 months ago

https://archive.is/3ZWh2

x1ph0z• 10 months ago

Not the worst policy from this admin tbh.

roughly3• 10 months ago

I think there’s plenty of interesting debates to be had about immigration policy and its effects on the labor market, but one thing worth noting here is that the primary problem that damn near every other country on earth has isn’t immigration, it’s brain drain.

A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so. You can argue how well that’s worked out for us - having worked with a great many extremely talented H1bs in an industry largely built by immigrants, I’d consider it pretty positive - but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

jpadkins13• 10 months ago

The top end of H1B has been great for America. In the last few decades, there has been growth of abuse of the program to get mid level talent at below market rates which really hurts the middle class in America. People need to understand that most reformists don't want to get rid of the truly exceptional immigration to the US. We need to limit the volume, especially the immigrants that are directly competing with a hollowed out middle class in the US. Let me know if you want further reading on this topic.

RealityVoid7• 10 months ago

I am skeptical that _that_ is what's hollowing the middle class in America, it's equally easy to point to income inequality for this. But you have your story you believe, I'm resigned that the die are already cast.

It's kind of sad to see the accelerated downfall of your country.

jb19912• 10 months ago

This is exactly correct. The H1B visa has not lived up to its original premise in quite some time. A very significant percentage of people who are now working on these visas are not offering anything beyond what is already available within the American workforce, except for lower compensation.

K0balt3• 10 months ago

Idk what visa program was is under, but home depot used to bring in immigrants to run their stores (stockers , cashiers, etc ) under a program that meant that some contractor was putting 12 people in a 3 bedroom apartment and charging them big fees to come work for minimum wage. This was a while ago, but I was in the rental business and got to see it first hand and talk to the workers. It was extremely exploitative. 5 years ago they were still doing it my hometown, I haven’t checked since. It was mostly Eastern Europeans.

legitster3• 10 months ago

The median pay of an H1B visa holder is $118k. The 25th percentile is $90k. This is from the government's official data: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/O...

Any suggestion that the program is dragging wages down instead of dragging wages up is not just misleading but factually wrong.

Calc13• 10 months ago

Agreed, however the top end usually comes to US to do masters and then tries to get job using H1B. If this is where to be instated in this form, it almost precludes any fresh college graduates from getting a shot at this.

joseangel_sc• 10 months ago

this comment is at best wrong, and at worst, purposely misleading

thatfrenchguy3• 10 months ago

mid level talent at below market rates which really hurts the middle class in America

What is "mid level talent" though? you're not getting that data from H1B wage filings, they're factually under-reporting compensation.

roughly3• 10 months ago

The hollowing out of the middle class in the US isn't because of immigrants, it's because of a sustained campaign by capital to reduce the power of labor over the last 50-odd years and to concentrate wealth as best they can. Immigrant labor contributes to that because we've got inadequate labor protections and because we bought into the idea that lower consumer prices was a fine reason to ignore both labor and antitrust.

valkmit4• 10 months ago

How valid is this premise in an increasingly global world?

Most of the companies that are paying salaries could (and already do!) have offices in other jurisdictions where they could hire the same talent.

Better to bring this talent onshore, where the wages are taxed, than force these companies to hire from satellite offices?

It doesn't make much financial sense for companies to stop sourcing talent globally just because they can't be brought onshore, especially given enough time.

Purely anecdotal, but for me personally this wouldn't change who or how I hire, just the location.

trollbridge5• 10 months ago

Exceptional migrants can still qualify under O-1, which hasn’t really changed at all. Most tech startup founders can qualify for O-1, unless your startup is really pointless.

tw04• 10 months ago

People need to understand that most reformists don't want to get rid of the truly exceptional immigration to the US.

And how are “they” planning on determining who is “truly exceptional”? And what makes you think the “truly exceptional” ones are still going to have any interest in coming here when they see what happens to the people who the current regime deems “not exceptional”?

I sure as hell wouldn’t come to the US knowing I may be deported to a third world prison if I post the wrong thing online.

ajross3• 10 months ago

In the last few decades, there has been growth of abuse of the program to get mid level talent at below market rates which really hurts the middle class in America.

That's a weird definition for "middle class", there are only 65k H1b visas issued every year. If you really are talking about the middle 60% or whatever of all workers, immigrants on H1b's are irrelevant noise. At most, these visas might be seen to impact specific professions (tech in particular, lots of doctors too) that most people don't consider representative of the "middle class".

charliea08• 10 months ago

We should just set a number of H1Bs and auction them off.

beowulfey• 10 months ago

With that in mind, would you say the administration is going about this the right way? Because this is going to hurt all H1B candidates, not just the "middle".

felineflock2• 10 months ago

Please share the articles you have about the matter.

keeda5• 10 months ago

Looking at it solely from a perspective of competition between labor glosses over the fact that insufficient labor is also bad for the economy because it keeps companies from growing and hiring more people.

So sure, while the fewer jobs that they can fill could have higher wages (not a given, because lack of labor can stunt or kill companies) there could be much fewer people employed overall, which is clearly bad overall.

Of course, that assumes there is enough room for companies to grow. There are strong indications (e.g. the various labor and unemployment surveys) that this is the case in the US. In fact, there is a credible theory that the reason the US managed the inflation crisis so well was due to the immigration crisis.

I elaborated more (along with a couple of relevant studies) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45308311

andirk• 10 months ago

I have worked with software people on H1B visas who's #1 goal was to hire more [specific nationality] and thin out the rest. Their work ethic was a top-down rule by fear, and their code was VERY bad. Made my life straight up worse. One example of abusing the H1B visa system.

I have also worked with amazing H1B visa people.

Just make sure they're actually talented.

hiddencost• 10 months ago

Honestly: a lie. One you chose because it appealed to you, and then constructed a narrative to support it. We could easily afford to have a middle class in this country if we distributed wealth differently, and more immigrants would help us do it.

hshdhdhj44446• 10 months ago

The hollowed out middle class is surely because of the class of jobs that have been growing the fastest, seeing the highest salaries and salary growths, and have been the best jobs in America for 2 decades.

It’s not because of the other jobs which the H1Bs aren’t even allowed to do abd have seen falling salaries and degrowth.

ambicapter2• 10 months ago

I would like further reading on this topic.

jitix• 10 months ago

Agree with mid level talent part, not the middle class part. H1B holders by large don't hold typical "middle class" jobs like accountants, office admins, marketing, sales, teachers, etc: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/11/jobs-with-the-largest-shares...

Can you please share your reading material that links H1B software engineers with decline in middle class jobs from this list?

ivell2• 10 months ago

I think one unintended outcome of this would be that the jobs would be completely outsourced to outside of US. The ones remaining would be government contracts that have provisions against it. The government could add tariffs on services, but we need to see if that just moves the companies outside of US or not. Capitalism in a democracy is hard to control.

rtpg2• 10 months ago

Or you could stop tying H-1Bs to employers, meaning that there's less incentive to do the work to bring "mid level talent" in at below market rates, because those people would immediately find a job at market rates.

There's a straightforward solution here. Right now H-1Bs are a way for companies to lock in employees by leveraging the visa status.

rob74• 10 months ago

I suspect that in the case of tech companies, the end result of this won't be more jobs going to Americans, it will be either remote workers in low wage countries or outsourcing to low wage countries. Which, in the long term, might lead to fewer tech jobs in the US overall.

Still, I can't help but feel a little bit of glee at all the tech companies who did their best to suck up to Trump, and now he stabs them in the back.

quantumgarbage• 10 months ago

Sure, show us the numbers you got from your "further readings".

Plenty of peeps are being much more factual below, compared to the gvt linguo that you are just rehashing rn

EliRivers• 10 months ago

People need to understand that most reformists don't want to get rid of the truly exceptional immigration to the US.

What do the most influential reformists want? The ones who set the extreme agenda that everyone else follows? As I understand it, right now the US is routinely enacting policies that the majority of citizens do not want; from this, could we surmise that the majority of people, and presumably thus the majority of reformists, will receive the extreme H1B policies that they don't want?

regularjack• 10 months ago

Is there any data that supports these statements? Specifically that the program is abused and that it "hurts" the middle class.

dumbfounder• 10 months ago

Are we saying software engineers making $125-150k are middle class? If so, then yes this I absolutely believe this is true. These will still be high level people for the most part that will up our game in my opinion. Thats in the opinion column, hard to prove. But this fee may have a net negative impact on jobs for Americans as it will push more companies to simply outsource to these countries rather than pay more in the US. So you need to tax that too. And then they will find some way around that and we will need to tax that new thing. I don’t like this game, it is trying to stop progress in my opinion. But I guess it is a balancing act and who knows where you set the line. Adding friction to it will definitely make it so only higher quality talent migrates here, that much seems clear.

glutee• 10 months ago

Agree with the abuse part. Question is - is this the right way to fix the problem? A half baked executive order that raises more questions than answers for the existing H1B visa holders.

Salgat2• 10 months ago

I imagine for the "best of the best" making $500k+ annually, this is just the cost of business and they're not going anywhere, while for the h1b workers making closer to $100k annually, this is a show stopper.

azernik• 10 months ago

First it was "we're only against illegal immigration, we want people to do it the right way".

Now it's "we need to limit the volume" and "don't want to get rid of the truly exceptional immigration".

Forgive me if I am skeptical, especially in a world where ICE is rounding up classic "exceptional" immigrants like biology researchers, or South Korean experts setting up a factory.

snowflakeandrey• 10 months ago

I thought the top end is supposed to be served via O1 -> EB-1A -> Citizenship pipeline?

asdff3• 10 months ago

I don't think it follows that preventing that brain drain would have lead to appreciably better outcomes for those countries. The real sucking factor for the united states is the second to none availability of capital to spend on R & D. If you keep the brains where they were raised, there is no mechanism for them to actually turn their ideas into fruition because there is little funding to support this either in private or public sector. The reason why you hear about research talent going back to China is because they are offered PI positions and generous startup grants or something analogous in most cases, with the government there committed to invest billions in research. You can't really expect that in the global south. You can't even really expect that in Europe in a lot of cases.

derefr3• 10 months ago

If you keep the brains where they were raised, there is no mechanism for them to actually turn their ideas into fruition because there is little funding to support this either in private or public sector.

In such a world, why wouldn't you see 1. foreign R&D companies, 2. indexed into a thriving foreign equities market, 3. gathering the interest of domestic investors who want to diversify beyond domestic investments, by 4. moving their money and/or investing in domestic proxy investments?

I say this as a Canadian whose managed mutual-fund holdings are apparently largely composed of foreign (mostly American) proxy equities — and who has met many Canadian-based VCs who don't do much investment into Canadian companies. If not for talent immigration, the American investment landscape would probably look similar!

tshaddox• 10 months ago

I don't think it follows that preventing that brain drain would have lead to appreciably better outcomes for those countries.

Well sure, it depends what the counterfactual is. If those countries just physically prevented the people from leaving, and nothing more, I wouldn't expect that countries' outcomes to improve. But what the countries suffering from brain drain presumably want is for there to be attractive opportunities for those skilled workers in their own country.

kelvinjps3• 10 months ago

But a country with the capital would do, who knows maybe China tries to import those "brains" into their country to compete with the US

mcmcmc• 10 months ago

A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so.

This is a double edged sword given that it means there’s less incentive to invest in US public education and fostering our own talent. Instead of brain drain we’re dealing with brain rot.

xp843• 10 months ago

A hugely overlooked point. If FAANG etc want talented people, and couldn't hire H1Bs, they might have more of an incentive to try to influence education and to train people with aptitude but lacking learnable skills.

As of now, both the K12 system and college education seem in freefall in terms of quality and applicability to careers. No doubt those companies will devote their money to lobbying to keep hiring H1Bs instead of training the talent they need here, since they're just profit-optimizing functions, rather than humans with morals.

jp57• 10 months ago

Isn't this what the O-1 visa is for?

czhu12• 10 months ago

I misread this initially as the problem that damn near every other country has is also immigration. This seems to also be at least somewhat true for first world countries.

Looking at the politics in Europe and Asia today, the question of who is allowed in and why is a central point of debate that rages and threatens to tear apart much of the fabric that was built over generations.

melenaboija• 10 months ago

Absolutely.

I think some people underestimate the power of those willing to migrate to the US.

I’m in my early 40s and moved from Western Europe to the US 11 years ago, and I feel I was the last generation eager to come, the perception of US is changing fast. This is not an H-1B problem but still a parallel one on how to attract people.

behringer2• 10 months ago

It hasn't worked out for Americans either. How many months does it take to get a job? Just ask around.

fair_enough6• 10 months ago

One man's rising gas prices are another man's oil industry boom.

The H1B process is unfair to engineers because it drives down their compensation in a way that doesn't affect nurses or welders. If immigration were completely irrespective of profession and based solely around whether the imported laborers get paid enough to contribute more than they receive in taxes/public services, nobody would have any standing to complain about their wages being driven down because every single person benefits in the long run from the economic growth.

As things stand, tech workers and unskilled laborers get screwed by the current status quo because they don't reap the benefit of cheaper goods and services in all the other industries, but everyone else benefits from cheaper electronics/software and landscaping/housekeeping/food service while their wages grow.

You're not wrong on paper, the current immigration practices are just screwy.

EDIT - The hard statistical proof that most of the H-1Bs are tech workers:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/o...

fabian2k• 10 months ago

Software developer salaries are still extremely high in the US. So I would doubt that this has had a huge effect.

flyinglizard• 10 months ago

If you look at the background of founders in tech you’ll soon realize that without immigration this entire industry would be a shadow of what it currently is; it’s not about the amount of compensation, it’s about whether there’s a job at all.

tamimio3• 10 months ago

Precisely, I have been saying this for a while: engineers are smart enough to invent things but too stupid to gatekeep their profession. You have bootcampers, H1B workers, self-taught whatever, anyone can call themselves an engineer overnight. In 5 years you are now a "principal engineer!" I would even go further and distinguish between software and other disciplines of engineering. A web developer who is called a senior engineer is on paper equal to embedded engineers who spent at least 5 years in education plus god knows how long in experience to get the same title. This is wrong. I don't see a CPR trainee suddenly being able to call themselves a registered nurse!

davidw4• 10 months ago

As always, so much zero-sum thinking in all these discussions.

Often, the person may not have been as productive, happy, or well compensated in their own country.

Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

I was discussing this elsewhere, and dug up something I wrote 11 years ago, and I think I'm still pretty happy with it:

https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...

ericmay7• 10 months ago

Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

How are Americans better off in this scenario?

RealityVoid7• 10 months ago

I greatly enjoyed your article and it saddens me the rise of this "us vs them" mentality. But people that think like you still give me hope.

kalkin2• 10 months ago

The weirdest thing about the zero-sum rhetoric to me is: when one person is demanding to benefit at the expense of someone else, if I'm neither of them, why am I supposed to care?

Suppose I'm not an American--like plenty of HN commenters--or alternatively that (as in reality) I am an American but I have good reasons to think that the personal benefit I derive from the presence of immigrants is greater than the cost to me as an individual, even were I to concede more generic economic arguments about wage competition. Then... why am I supposed to prioritize the interests of American tech workers over foreign immigrants?

I don't in general endorse an "I got mine, screw you" approach, nor one that says "hey GDP is going up so screw the losers", but if someone else is taking exactly that attitude just with a nationalistic inflection, it's hard to extend them a lot of empathy.

davidw4• 10 months ago

Also: whatever you think of this issue, it's very much r/LeopardsAteMyFace in terms of some of the big tech companies cozying up to the administration.

dyauspitr5• 10 months ago

Shutting down H1Bs is extremely stupid because >50% of our unicorn founders are first generation immigrants that started out on the H1B. They are the greatest creators of jobs in the entire economy. Shutting down the H1B is a dark horse for the end of American success.

alexose• 10 months ago

It's absolutely insane. At some point you have to wonder if this is deliberate sabotage.

trollbridge5• 10 months ago

That depends on if unicorn founders are really “American success”.

Do we need more Facebooks and AirBNBs?

riazrizvi• 10 months ago

It’s not a strategic strength of the country as a whole to displace out of the economy the top talent, with a constant stream of new workers. This is just a local gaming by industry heads chasing end of year bonuses based on short term financials. We saw the offshoring of talent in manufacturing destroy domestic capacity. We are now seeing a similar phenomenon as there is pressure from many sides to offshore tech or migrate employment from citizens and permanent residents to temporary residents.

The employment environment in Silicon Valley has been extremely strange since 2022. I haven’t been able to find a job in my field since then, despite being at the top of my game. I’m practically bankrupt and currently making ends meet in a minimum wage job.

kerpal• 10 months ago

This is so absolutely fundamental to US strategic advantage.

A huge reason we have so many unicorns is because doing business and scaling in the US is easier than EU or other places.

A huge part of why the Manhattan Project was successful was also because of substantial brain drain from Europe. I think Scott Galloway wrote about this or may have popularized it.

SV_BubbleTime7• 10 months ago

If you're only talking about the exceptional sure. But when Microsoft fires x and applies for ~x H1Bs the same day... That doesn't seem like what you're talking about at all.

If an employee is exceptional and a skilled unicorn wrangler... 100K is nothing.

kevin_thibedeau6• 10 months ago

A significant number of them were fleeing persecution. General rule: don't be inhospitable to your smart people or they will find greener pastures.

christkv2• 10 months ago

I hardly think world famous physicists are comparable to mediocre crud app programmers on a h1b.

herbst3• 10 months ago

I've read brain drain in this thread multiple times. I might agree this happened back then, but I don't know what people mean by it right now. Where is the term coming from suddenly and why is it used to uncritical?

ljsprague4• 10 months ago

Isn't Poland about to overtake Britain in per capita GDP?

bialpio2• 10 months ago

No; UK has roughly double GDP per capita of Poland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no...

onetimeusename• 10 months ago

Ok that may be true but I would also argue there is such a thing as elite overproduction[1] via immigration. That is, we are basically importing a new elite for a fixed number of roles in society. Let's presume also that the children of highly talented immigrants are also highly talented. In some sense this kind of social engineering could be harmful to both nations involved.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction

LAC-Tech3• 10 months ago

Sites like jobs.now show the H1B situation is incredibly corrupt. So many hard to find jobs where they ask applicants to physically mail in their resume, so that later on they can make it an H1B job.

I don't think being against exploitive mass migration - which by its definition is brain drain of other countries, which every bleeding hearter likes to ignore - is the same saying no one should ever immigrate ever.

non_aligned3• 10 months ago

A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so.

That's largely a myth, though. The vast majority of smart, driven people have no path to lawfully immigrate to the US.

By a wide margin, the main immigration pathway are family visas (i.e., marriages and citizens bringing in relatives). H-1B visas are a comparatively small slice that's available via a lottery only to some professions and some backgrounds - and the process is basically gamed by low-wage consultancies, with a large proportion of the rest gobbled up by a handful of Big Tech employers. And that's before we even get to the fact that H-1B doesn't necessarily give you a path to permanent residency, depending on where you're from.

For most people who aren't techies, the options are really very limited, basically "be exceptionally wealthy", "be a celebrity", or "be one of the world's foremost experts on X".

Illniyar2• 10 months ago

I mean there's somewhere between 10-20k o1 visas issued a year. o1 is literally the visa for smart and talented people.

There is also EB with National Interest Waiver - including for profession like Doctors and such.

Not to mention a lot of employment based visa, if you work for a US employer - L1, EB1/2 directly etc...

There isn't a permanent resident visa for Driven people - but you can get entrepreneur visas if you run a profitable business.

mbesto• 10 months ago

You can argue how well that’s worked out for us

And its an easy argument:

The Manhattan Project engaged thousands of scientists, but over 16 notable principal scientists (with major published credits) were foreign-born and either retained their citizenship or became naturalized U.S. citizens only after escaping persecution or war in Europe.

As of 2025, about 10-12 CEOs of the top 50 Fortune 500 (F50) companies were born outside the United States, representing roughly 20-25% of F50 CEOs. This number has grown over the past two decades, reflecting increasing diversity among leadership at America's largest corporations.

Nearly half of all Fortune 500 companies in 2025—specifically 44%—were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants, meaning the original founders were not born in the United States or were the first generation after immigration.

These are just three major examples.

l___l4• 10 months ago

I don't know if that's easy. If this was flipped around, 100% of the top Fortune 500 would be born inside the United States if no immigrants were allowed in.

A better test may be comparing company performance worldwide instead of only in the F500. That's a different list, the Global 500.

vovavili• 10 months ago

Taking the well-being of abstract concepts like a country over the well-being of concrete individuals is a slippery road towards a particularly unappealing version of collectivism. Me emigrating from Eastern to Western Europe was among the best decisions I have made in my entire life, and I couldn't care less if the outcome of this is my country doing "worse". My country by itself doesn't feel nor think anything, but I certainly do. One of these thoughts is me not believing that I have a civic duty to be less well-off materially and mentally just so my taxes get re-routed to a country I accidentally happened to be born in. I vote with my feet.

the_real_cher5• 10 months ago

O-1 visas are for people with exceptional skill.

H1B visa is just a rank and file worker with a certain skill.

varispeed2• 10 months ago

In the UK it is mostly immigration policy. Thanks to something called Boriswave, corporations could import knowledge workers at close to minimum wage (so locals couldn't even compete for those jobs) and now it changed a little, but still it's fraction of what local worker would command for similar job. This has basically collapsed the IT market. Then you have more people competing for the same resources, meaning rents going up, you wait longer for a doctor's appointment and so on. Just don't get me wrong - I don't blame immigrants. If I was in a poor country and had talent, I'd grab any opportunity to get more experience and get foot in the door so to speak.

It's corruption of the government.

Now, by the way I understand H-1B, $100k still seams cheap for essentially getting a slave.

trollbridge5• 10 months ago

After adjusting for inflation, slaves from the 19th century prices would be worth somewhere from $30k-$150k in present day dollars, according to the best research.

Very chilling to think about.

rdtsc• 10 months ago

but one thing worth noting here is that the primary problem that damn near every other country on earth has isn’t immigration, it’s brain drain.

It's great if you only root for the US, but taking more global perspective, let's have other countries improve their situation as well. There are almost 200 or so countries, I am ok with them improving their economy using their equivalent of H1-B programs.

This is a golden opportunity for others to step in an eat Americans' lunch so to speak, let's see if they capitalize on it.

JustExAWS• 10 months ago

I’ve worked with plenty of coworkers on H1B both on boring old enterprise companies and BigTech. Absolutely none of them were better (or worse) than American citizens.

On the other hand, those working for WITCH companies…

And trust me, I’m in no way “anti minority”. Not only are some of my best friends minorities - so are my parents…

Braxton19805• 10 months ago

If you're not anti minority why are using anecdotal evidence to generalize large population groups?

ponector4• 10 months ago

> hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from

Not so straight forward. Ambitious people leave underdeveloped countries because there are little opportunities. It's not like they are going to build same great product there as in California.

rectang• 10 months ago

You can argue how well that’s worked out for us

The elephant in the room is that many of these highly successful people who have brought great economic advantage to the US over the years happen to have brown skin.

As for why this policy is being adopted: sometimes an elephant is just an elephant. The huge price increase hurts brown people (mostly), and possibly curbs immigration. It will play well with a certain segment of Americans.

There are many subtleties to the H1-B visa debate, but I don’t think they are at play in this policy change.

ivell2• 10 months ago

I think it could be most likely to apply pressure on the US-India FTA under discussion.

Context: 50% tariff has been applied to India. Chabahar port sanctions are reintroduced. And more to come in next few weeks.

mancerayder8• 10 months ago

A lot of the H1B's in the software industry definitely match the description you stated - talented folks coming from places which (I'll add) have superior education systems. The problem isn't immigration, it's the undercutting of wages and the fact that these H1's (who we ALL work with) are trapped, working with fear and under pressure, due to the leverage the employer has.

H1B program == leverage over the H1B workers due to the employment tie-in to residence, leverage over other non-H1B workers as well, due to the wider talent pool at LOWER wages.

I don't know whether Trump is doing is good, but the H1B program helps Owners more than it helps Workers.

gustavoaca1997• 10 months ago

Not quite. This type of visa helps folks like me live in livable countries with good enough salaries to help our family and elderly don't die in our home countries

lo_zamoyski• 10 months ago

but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

The ethics of emigration is an interesting area that's under explored, especially in non-emergency scenarios. We have obligations to our own societies, for example, but how this affects emigration requires clarification.

vjvjvjvjghv2• 10 months ago

"extremely talented H1bs"

We would have to filter for these more. In reality the majority of H1B visa are issued to companies like Infosys or Tata who often have below average people.

kevin_thibedeau6• 10 months ago

They really should just outlaw H-1Bs for body shops. There is no rational justification for it given the blatant abuse of the visa program they have long demonstrated. If a company needs work done, they should be forced to sponsor a guest worker directly.

cgio• 10 months ago

Being an immigrant, I think it’s net positive for everyone. I brought skills that, at the moment I immigrated, my home country could not leverage, even though it paid for my free education. I built on these skills and if my home country ever needs these skills, I would be excited to contribute.

jghn2• 10 months ago

Don't worry. The actual text declares that DHS has the discretion to give exceptions to companies. [1] I'm sure this does not at all imply that what this policy really means is that companies who bend the knee won't see this extra charge.

[1] https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3lz...

ferrouswheel• 10 months ago

Maybe talent in third world countries. I think it's mostly mid-tier people from first world countries.

People with actually talent and intelligence realise how messed up the USA is (and has been for some time) and prefer things like healthcare and gun control.

And if they really want the lack of work life balance and/or high paid roles, they can consult from US company like I do. Now I get the money, but I live in a decent country.

I don't think there is any amount of money you could offer me to move to the USA. Well ok, maybe when it gets to $10 million / year I would have to start considering it.

transcriptase• 10 months ago

Meanwhile the vast majority of people in real world don’t consume a steady diet of r/politics et al, has actually spent an appreciable amount of time in the U.S., and has come to a different (nearly opposite) conclusion. I wonder which is more correct.

cyanydeez2• 10 months ago

Unfortunately, this is a good faith argument.

In reality, this will just be used to show fealty to trump and a fastlane visa will be opened to companies willing to join the fascists.

Again, good faith argument against something that isn't bewing done with a reasonably democratic outcome.

franktankbank2• 10 months ago

Intelligence and wisdom comes from the shores of experience. This idea that you can pull einsteins from the east is stupid.

jeffhwang• 10 months ago

Didn't Einstein himself literally come from east of the Atlantic Ocean? ;)

kingstnap• 10 months ago

Are you really suggesting that people who are intelligent are purely that way because of their environment and experience?

Any amount of observing children will show that equal instruction will not net equal outcome.

8bitsrule• 10 months ago

it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

It damn sure hasn't worked out well for a lot of talented, perpetually underemployed (many deep in perpetual debt) US kids. And I'm pretty sure that what those talented folks learn here in the US has made its way back to those countries, considering (e.g.) the level of competition we see from Asia these days.

Hnrobert422• 10 months ago

Well, it's positive for the companies and their investors. Is that the "us" it has worked out for?

ambicapter2• 10 months ago

love it or hate it, it hasn't worked out well for/in the minds of native-born us citizens either, a sentiment which I think this policy is going to tap into hard.

bonestamp2• 10 months ago

That was my thought too, and then I wondered if the workers are $100k more expensive to bring here then maybe the jobs are just going to go to the same people, but in their home country.

nashadelic• 10 months ago

What other country do you know of that can, with a wave of a hand, import a million highest-quality, ambitious people from across the globe? These folks aren't clamoring to go to other countries; this is the US position, and it was built with lots of hard work. With these changes, let's see how much this hurts in the foot.

mgh2• 10 months ago

Did anyone see the writing on the wall? This is an obvious ban on foreign high skill labor: what employer will pay 100k upfront cost?

The cost is not even close to cover the wage difference (20-30%): https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wa...

glenngillen• 10 months ago

Admittedly my frame of reference here is now a decade ago when I was living in California. But we would routinely hire people on H1B, and it most definitely wasn't because we thought it was a cost saving. Between the >=$20K in legal fees, similar budget for relocation expenses to bring someone into the country, and having to pay them as a foreign contractor for anything up to 10 months while we wait for the applications to re-open for the year. And then pay them the same as any local talent we hand on the team.

Hiring local people was preferable in every way. But the market was hot and it was seemingly almost impossible to actually do that.

LightBug12• 10 months ago

I'd wager: Not any more !

belter• 10 months ago

but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

No, it has not. And not because the people were not capable. It is because most of those projects depend on having the right kind of ecosystem. Massive venture capital, stable institutions, cutting-edge infrastructure, tolerant regulation, network effects, and huge government spend especially in space, defense, and R&D.

Those elements are overwhelmingly concentrated in the U.S. and particularly in Silicon Valley.

Jan Koum didn’t build WhatsApp in Kyiv he built it in California. Ukraine in the 1990s barely had reliable phone lines, let alone the mobile networks, cloud infrastructure, and capital required to scale a global messaging service. Sergey Brin didn’t found Google in Moscow. Russia had brilliant mathematicians, but no open internet culture, no ad driven funding model, and no free flowing capital markets. No chance of a SpaceX out of South Africa or Canada. Those countries entire annual space budget wouldn’t even cover a single Falcon 9 launch.

These are not just anecdotes, but the proof that without the combination of American capital, infrastructure, and government spending, projects on this scale simply would not have been possible. The brain power was there, but the ecosystem that turns raw talent into global impact was not.

password543214• 10 months ago

Do you not want your own citizens employed for imaginary geopolitical gains?

This mindset was always going to backfire and now you are just witnessing it.

ozim4• 10 months ago

Example of Poland and guys that Sam.A. Gave shout out.

Their talents would be simply wasted in Poland. There simply is not enough capital and academic resources are not going to best people but to ones gaming the system.

I bet a lot of talented people move to US because they would have to fight uphill battles in their home countries with lack of funding, nepotism, corruption, caste systems you name it.

So I don’t think it would make much difference for the countries if they don’t have society set in ways to benefit from those talents.

notmyjob• 10 months ago

Where would we be without foreign brains like Musk, Theil, the Wright brothers, knuth, North Korean programmers and that guy that got hired by 40 different startups at once.

thepryz• 10 months ago

There’s another benefit to immigration that isn’t often discussed. Known as the immigrant paradox, children of immigrants routinely perform better academically than their peers, even despite other socioeconomic challenges. This suggests that immigrants not only benefit the country from the work they directly perform but their children also benefit the country by raising the bar for academic performance and arguably growing up into better educated if not better skilled workers themselves.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5555844/

slimebot80• 10 months ago

Lots of truth there. But it's certainly worked wonders for the top tier of Indian society, being able to farm out labour. Akshata Murty certainly has had a fair slice of the cake, for example.

rayiner17• 10 months ago

The U.S. had immigration restriction for almost half of the last century: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-a.... During this period, the U.S. became the undisputed superpower. Silicon Valley was established during this period too.

Of course we continued to accept superstars even during immigration restriction, like German scientists fleeing the Nazis. We probably don’t need more than 10,000 or 20,000 carefully selected immigrants a year to continue doing that.

shswkna• 10 months ago

Thats why this move is good news for the rest of the world. Our competitive advantage will increase, year after year, albeit from a low level compared to the US.

zer00eyz6• 10 months ago

How does a republican raise taxes without raising taxes.

This is how they do it.

What industries are going to get hit hardest? Tech and medicine, two of the largest money makers in the country.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5815043/

newfriend9• 10 months ago

Hire Americans and there is no "tax". Problem solved.

zer00eyz6• 10 months ago

I'll replace all your coworkers with random DeVry grads. After all people are interchangeable like parts of an assembly line.

aylmao5• 10 months ago

The pendulum swung really hard back to in-person office work a couple years ago. I wonder if this will swing it back and make more positions remote-friendly.

chrisweekly• 10 months ago

Here's hoping

alephnerd7• 10 months ago

This only incentivizes opening a GCC in Eastern Europe or India. I can't justify hiring a remote worker in the US and paying them $150k-200k when I can hire 2-3 people in Warsaw, Prague, Tel Aviv, or Hyderabad for $60k-90k.

giveita5• 10 months ago

Remote if you live outside US. You get a COL indexed salary.

lisbbb5• 10 months ago

I initially loved remote work and was doing 2/5ths of my week remove before 2020. Once I became fully remote for years, the horror sunk in--it's career suicide.

aylmao5• 10 months ago

IMO it’s just different. If you want to go into management or anything involving politics, I do think remote isn’t the move.

As a fully remote engineering contractor I’ve been building my area of expertise, clients and connections, and so far it’s been alright. It does take work and there’s no one to guide you, but in my experience with ambition it’s doable.

srameshc• 10 months ago

This is going to kill H1B and immigration from countries like India, China and others for skilled workers. Even though $100K isn't a lot considering the overall investment that goes into hiring a full time employee, employers wouldn't risk that kind of money apart from all the document processing they have to. Maybe big tech will hire a few hundred every year but others won't even bother.

TriangleEdge• 10 months ago

Maybe big tech will hire a few hundred every year ...

A few hundred? All of the tech companies I've worked for are > 50% Indians in the US. Especially in big tech. I could be wrong, but my understanding is there there is not enough software developers in the US, hence the temp workers. Is there expectation that the demand will drop?

desolate_muffin• 10 months ago

Well for starters, maybe my new grad SWE buddy with 2 YOE will finally find a job after being laid off for nearly a year.

sul_tasto2• 10 months ago

There isn’t a shortage, they’re just trying to drive down wages.

gorbachev5• 10 months ago

It is, however, a great opportunity for Canada and Western Europe to snatch all those people who now aren't able to come to the United States.

I know for a fact that multinational companies are expanding in exactly those areas (plus India) for exactly the reason that it's become very difficult to hire and move people to the US.

Those workers aren't paying taxes in the United States, and obviously the companies hiring people outside of the US aren't going to hire people for those positions in the United States.

m_ke• 10 months ago

Yeah it's even worse than that. These big cos will be incentivized to move whole teams out of the US since it will be easier to hire from other countries for offices in Paris / Zurich / Warsaw / etc.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

Right. The current problem with H-1B is that we end up with a wide range of talent, ambition, and work ethic among the people brought in on that visa. In my experience, the total mix is not much different from the range you'd find in US-born workers. But we should be granting visas to the best and the brightest to come here.

I wouldn't mind a new policy that would raise the median "quality" of the H-1B visa holder, even if that meant the total number is lower. Sure, Canada and Western Europe can take the mediocre people we'd no longer be granting visas to, but so what.

But this $100k policy is not going to increase the median quality of candidates. I actually don't think it's going to have a huge affect on things; it's just a token effort to "do something" that Trump's base will eat up, and he'll declare it a success even if there's no improvement or it makes things worse.

mancerayder8• 10 months ago

You think immigration in Western Europe is easy? It depends where, for one thing. It's getting more onerous and there are pressures to make it more so. How good is your French? More importantly, how might a 60K Euro/yr salary feel when you're paying 2-2500 a month in rent to be near work ?

Canadian salaries are also notoriously low in tech.

conception• 10 months ago

100k/yr.

insane_dreamer2• 10 months ago

I don't see it as a negative. If they're exceptionally good, they can get an O-1 visa.

SV_BubbleTime7• 10 months ago

This is going to kill H1B and immigration from countries like India, China and others

Surely, that could not possibly be the point!

whatever110• 10 months ago

So, essentially, startups will never be able to hire fresh graduate students again (masters/phd). This means that the best and brightest individuals who have made it to the top US institutions after winning numerous rounds of global talent filtering will be deported.

selimthegrim4• 10 months ago

I like how the assumption here is that there are no domestic graduate students anymore.

whatever110• 10 months ago

Not none, but very few in the stem fields (less than 40% from my estimates).

Why would you pursue a PhD with a 25k/year stipend when you can just start a near 6-figure job and start paying off your student debt?

Only the ones with financial freedom or commitment to research take the PhD pill. Or when you go through a recession and you want to delay the entry to the job searching market.

yodsanklai7• 10 months ago

I'd be curious to know the stats. My personal experience: I interviewed tons of candidates in the past few years for a big tech company, a small fraction are US citizens (at least from what I can tell from their resume).

lisbbb5• 10 months ago

In 1996 I was at a top US university getting a master's and was the only white dude in most of the classes. There was a probability class that could have been taught in Mandarin if it hadn't been for me.

narcotraffico1• 10 months ago

My compsci classes were 80% foreigners. Why? I'd guess because they pay full tuition and the schools love the money.

Amezarak4• 10 months ago

If they're the best and the brightest individuals in the world, then surely they are worth absolutely enormous sums of money.

reenorap• 10 months ago

At that price point, it's cheaper for companies to risk investing in foreign branches and building up work centers outside of the US. You want to keep the price high enough to stop the bodyshops from gaming the system but you want it low enough so that all of the work doesn't get set out of the US.

tolmasky• 10 months ago

Perfect number to make H1Bs a tool that is out of reach for startups but still meaningful for large entrenched corporations. Nailed it. Maybe they can even waive the fee if you give the US government 10% of your company.

etothepii• 10 months ago

An equity minimum would deal with this.

dilyevsky3• 10 months ago

University hiring is basically rekt. Throwing out baby with the bath water per usual with this admin...

kelnos19• 10 months ago

How much does university hiring depend on H-1B? I would expect much of that comes through O-1 or EB-1/2/3, no?

apwell235• 10 months ago

lots of immigrant kids are in uni now. all my cousins are doing cs now. look at latest batch of yc founders.

decimalenough• 10 months ago

Instead of a flat fee, they should just auction off the visas, highest salaries win.

This has been proposed before and I don't really see any downsides. If your company really needs them, just pay them what they're actually worth.

HanClinto• 10 months ago

Wow, I really like this.

scheme2715• 10 months ago

This insures that tech and finance get all the visas. A lot of things like rural medicine gets staffing through h1b sponsored physicians and likewise for post-docs and researchers. If this gets implemented across the board, a lot of science is going to disappear and a lot of medical care (especially outside of cities) is going to get a lot worse.

peripitea4• 10 months ago

Don't worry all those rural hospitals are about to shut down anyway.

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

They should cap visas issued by sector or DoL job families. It's way too skewed towards tech.

guywithahat4• 10 months ago

I like the idea of an auction, but why would we not charge a significant application fee? It ensures the company is serious about the position, and it raises money citizens won't have to pay. A high fee/tax seems like a win-win

leet_thow• 10 months ago

I believe there is upcoming legislation along those lines and that the adjustments announced today are those within the executive branches purview.

Atlas6672• 10 months ago

This will end what is essentially legal human trafficking by medium and large corporations.

Which is clearly a good thing, but I fear it signals deteriorating relationships with other countries.

jpadkins13• 10 months ago

Do other countries really want the US taking their top talent? I am not sure this is bad for foreign relations.

Atlas6672• 10 months ago

Legal human trafficking was good for capitalism (not for the trafficked or for US workers). Good for the capitalists' economy.

This just made it a little bit harder for american capitalists. No doubt there are nationalist concerns but also national security concerns behind this decision.

mrbonner• 10 months ago

Is it proposed by Trump. Why is everyone here assuming it is done and final. It probably won't be approved.

jpadkins13• 10 months ago

approved by who? The people of the US already elected the president. He pretty much ran on reforming the visa system for the benefit of the US worker. This is a first step in the process. For those who don't understand how he works, this is the opening offer which is of course extreme. It will light a fire under Congress to actually pass some real reform. He did this with all the tariffs and trade deals. Despite what you read in the globalist media, it didn't cause havoc to the economy. He forces people to come to the table, negotiate, and get stuff done.

aurareturn3• 10 months ago

  Despite what you read in the globalist media, it didn't cause havoc to the economy.

I'm going to need to know how you define "havoc".

aurizon• 10 months ago

Will my teleoperated humaniform robot be arrested by ICE while I am in Spain - hard at work...

stego-tech• 10 months ago

I vehemently disagree with whatever xenophobic nonsense he and Miller will vomit up to defend this move, provided he doesn't TACO out on it. Fuck bigotry, period.

However, H1Bs have been a thorny issue for a while, and this might be the rebalancing sorely needed. If Capital can freely import cheaper labor ad infinitum from abroad (or outsource it), then that deteriorates domestic stability while amplifying a form of Capitalist Imperialism abroad. Thus far, China's been the only country to really take full advantage of this long-term strategy error, and a lot of tech folks have been warning that failing to address known flaws in the visa process will ultimately leave us at a disadvantage in the long run, much like we did with manufacturing.

A high application fee is a start, but the better solution is dispensing with H1Bs entirely in favor of green card sponsorship with associated work contract. If these talented workers are that badly needed, companies would have no compunction sponsoring their permanent residency and, eventually, naturalization. Long-term data suggests none of the tech industry is really doing this, which means these "uniquely talented workers" are just replacing existing American workers at lower wages and higher precarity.

I love my international colleagues, and I want them to be treated with the same dignity and respect I receive. H1Bs do not, and cannot, accomplish this outcome.

st3fan• 10 months ago

Come to Canada

suriya-ganesh3• 10 months ago

Interesting decision. I'm on the F1 -> H1B pipeline myself as a software engineer. And my wife is a researcher working on Genetic Engineering.

Of the both of us, I've been the strong proponent for moving the US. and with each passing day, its getting harder to make a strong case for the pain, and uncertainty of moving here.

Lately everything has been counter to what one would expect from a pro-growth, accelerationist country. But I understand where the reasoning is coming from, though.

fred_is_fred5• 10 months ago

with each passing day, its getting harder to make a strong case for the pain, and uncertainty of moving here.

That is exactly the goal here by this administration.

dyauspitr5• 10 months ago

Shutting down the H1B is the end of the American success story. First generation immigrants have started the majority of our unicorns.

nceqs3• 10 months ago

if you are exceptional, there is always the O-1 visa

suriya-ganesh3• 10 months ago

I might.

It's not just this specific issue, honestly. Throwing wrench on all economies, that my wife and I bet on is what's horrible. Research fund cuts on premium institutes, the wonky arrests etc.

Even yesterday, I had to make a case for why all of this certainty might be worth it. And it was not easy. At this point though, I certainly agree that the US is not in a trajectory for appreciating external contributions.

guywithahat4• 10 months ago

The H1B really should have just been an O-1 from the beginning. Being a software or genetics engineer isn't really that interesting, we literally have millions of software engineers, and more genetics engineers than we have good jobs. If someone is truly exceptional than they deserve an O-1, and if you truly can't find any engineers in the US at your salary then maybe you should move overseas.

dyauspitr5• 10 months ago

No, you become exceptional after coming here. The majority of our unicorns are first generation immigrant founded.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

And the requirements for O-1 aren't even that difficult. I know people who are frankly not exceptional (not mediocre either, though, of course), but have worked with lawyers to systematically fulfill the requirements of the O-1 visa. It does take time to do, and I assume the legal assistance isn't cheap, but I think a lot of people on H-1Bs who don't even consider it, could do it.

sashank_1509• 10 months ago

O-1 is a subjective visa which means the process is heavily gamed. Pay conferences to host your papers, pay newspapers to write meaningless articles about you, get a famous personality to sign off on your recommendation letter (I know startups used their board of advisors only for this) and on and on. It’s mostly a joke at this point. O-1 can be scrapped and you wouldn’t lose anything

selimthegrim4• 10 months ago

Accelerationist doesn’t mean what you think it means here.

FL33TW00D• 10 months ago

Throw away the H1B, introduce streamlined high skill immigration to the US. Top 1% of talent from all over the world should be able to move in under 2 weeks.

The first country that cracks this will have streets paved with gold.

giveita5• 10 months ago

Quite a think to crack. My company takes 2 months to decide on whether to hire the top 1% of a very specific profession.

charles_f3• 10 months ago

Top 1% of talent

How do you determine that?

gorbachev5• 10 months ago

You pay an H1-B hiring consultant $500K to forge resumes for everyone you're hiring.

drdec2• 10 months ago

My take:

It should be an auction.

The annual salary should match the fee (unless below some minimum).

mooreds• 10 months ago

Sorry, is this legal? Like is the fee something that can be changed with an EO, or is it set by congress?

The original Bloomberg article doesn't state: https://archive.is/tpuut

Some research (okay, okay, I used Claude) indicates that "In summary, while Congress provides the statutory authority and mandates certain specific fees, the specific amounts for most H1B fees are set through the regulatory process by DHS/USCIS based on cost recovery principles and activity-based costing analysis."

Further, "The core authority comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) section 286(m), 8 U.S.C. 1356(m), which authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to set fees for adjudication services "at a level that will ensure recovery of the full costs of providing all such services".

From the legislation ( https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title8/pdf/U... ):

That fees for providing adjudication and naturalization services may be set at a level that will ensure recovery of the full costs of providing all such services, includ- ing the costs of similar services provided with- out charge to asylum applicants or other immi- grants. Such fees may also be set at a level that will recover any additional costs associated with the administration of the fees collected.

giveita5• 10 months ago

They have already torn up the constitution, this would be small potatoes.

CobrastanJorji3• 10 months ago

Ya gotta admit, $100,000 per person will definitely ensure recovery of the full costs of providing all such services.

I imagine there's a very good argument that the fee is intentionally excessive, and I also imagine that the Supreme Court will decide after a lengthy court battle that the President is due extensive deference in this.

jpadkins13• 10 months ago

yes it's legal. New admin is doing more background, investigations and immigration enforcement, which costs more. Taxes and fees are the price you pay for civilization!

declan_roberts6• 10 months ago

Recovery costs is set by the USCIS, which is under the executive branch and subject to "rule" changes.

pyuser5833• 10 months ago

Congress has largely written itself out of immigration policy. It's paid for by fees set by the executive, which means Congress does not have the power of the purse.

alephnerd7• 10 months ago

Here that sound? It's the GCCs being opened up as a result of this shift.

There's a reason Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and others have been expanding offices and raising TC in Eastern Europe and India for years.

The main industries that will be severely hit are chip design, biotech, pharma, and STEM academia.

Good for India though, who needs a "Thousand Talents" program when the targets of a brain drain are to cost prohibitive to hire in the US.

foota2• 10 months ago

"Critics, including many U.S. technology workers, argue that it allows firms to suppress wages and sideline Americans who could do the jobs."

I don't know many tech workers who criticize H1B visas, outside of maybe the way that they empower the employer over employees.

declan_roberts6• 10 months ago

How many American tech workers know anything about h1b? It's not like your employer tells you who is who.

bettercallsalad3• 10 months ago

India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries

Having worked with the recent generation of Indians, I can safely say this can be a good thing. Baseline morality and work ethics for many (not all, but many) in the recent generation of Indians are so low. It’s a generational shift that I can tell. Get rich quick, wannabe try too hard to fit in and have fun with wild Wild West mindset that just has a completely different tone from earlier generations of hard working Indians who helped build some of the major products we use today.

carabiner• 10 months ago

It's downright scary working with indians in a highly regulated industry. "Can we pretty please (with a cherry on top) [do something that bends or breaks federal regulations on national security or public safety]?" No, we fucking can't. Couple that with the occasional browbeating or hierarchical scolding.

jimmydoe• 10 months ago

That’s applies to the USA and rest of world not just India or China.

yks• 10 months ago

Yeah, "those others are less ethical than us Americans" doesn't pass muster in 2025. Reminds me of the anti-immigration arguments from the days bygone, that the immigrants coming from the corrupt authoritarian countries will vote against democracy in the US. While it might be even true(!) voting against democracy certainly came from the natives first, fast and furious.

bettercallsalad3• 10 months ago

That is an intellectually dishonest argument. You are invoking whataboutism knowing full well it doesn’t serve anyone well.

These kids that come from often wealthy or upper middle class families with faith and cultural grounding would be far better off in their life trajectory (and country as a whole with brain drain) if they stayed back, led innovation in their own country, and pushed their corrupt bureaucratic government ecosystem to change. Instead of opting for a mediocre hedonistic lifestyle in the west where they know they have no lasting stability (mind you it is 100+ years wait time for many in the current immigration process to get green card), often get stuck working in the same company and not able to move, can’t start things on their own again because of visa rules.

No one wins in this in the long run. Except maybe some corporations.

sul_tasto2• 10 months ago

Relations between the US and India have been strained recently because India refuses to implement sanctions on Russia for the war in Ukraine. I wonder if there is a geopolitical motive behind the timing of this decision.

RhysU• 10 months ago

I suspect the administration is indeed playing chess like you suggest.

This H1B policy will put internal domestic pressure on India to put sanctions pressure on Russia. If so, waive the fees for the Indian consultancy firms. Anytime India lets up on sanctions, the fees will come back.

Either the US will get the sanctions it seeks or it will get a revenue stream from a policy that plays well to many US voters.

hkpack• 10 months ago

because India refuses to implement sanctions on Russia

That was a stated reason. The real reason was that Narendra Modi didn't want to nominate Trump for a Nobel peace prize for his participation in India/Pakistan conflict and even acknowledge Trumps involvement.

All while Trump keeps talking that he stopped a war and deserves the prize.

chriscrisby• 10 months ago

“Reuters was not immediately able to establish details of who the fee would apply to or how it would be administered.”

I’ll wait till I form an opinion on this.

moralestapia2• 10 months ago

Yes, this is the way to go.

giveita5• 10 months ago

Trump's plan might help with my dream of being able to be paid well in tech without going to the US. This action is another reason to divest from the one tech hub to around temperature works.

moralestapia2• 10 months ago

Downvote me all you want.

Pack up, anyway.

chickenzzzzu• 10 months ago

Here's what I propose:

1) All countries are free to come up with as strict or as loose immigration/tourist visa requirements as they like.

2) Companies can source remote labor from anywhere with zero government overhead.

3) Companies cannot source physical labor from abroad.

4) Reform local housing laws so that housing is not used for speculation/tied to employment.

Then communities can finally be communities, work can be work, and tourism can be tourism.

throw_away_974• 10 months ago

This does not really goes with the employment at will clause. Companies would just stop hiring H1Bs. Even the signon bonus comes with some sort of payback requirements if some one leaves before certain duration.

CobrastanJorji3• 10 months ago

It's probably not even worth asking these days, but is there a reason to believe that the President has such an authority?

thelastgallon2• 10 months ago

I wonder if this is applied to H1B renewals too?

mtremsal2• 10 months ago

IIRC technically there's no such thing as a "renewal". It's just a new application that bypasses the lottery. So given the low level of thought that goes into these EOs, the answer is almost certainly "yes"...

mtremsal2• 10 months ago

I was wrong. They’re attaching the fee to the lottery, somehow.

TMWNN5• 10 months ago

Trump answered a reporter's question about this. The fee is $100K per employee per year.

charles_f3• 10 months ago

This debate is always discussed from an immigration angle, but if companies truly have an issue with "finding skilled workers", another organic solution should be to try to "skill the workers", i.e. making education more affordable. Maybe that's something these 100k fees could be put towards?

shrubble• 10 months ago

This is likely a bargaining chip that is meant to bring India back to the negotiating table for one topic or another.

dotnet003• 10 months ago

Not really seeing how? Wouldn't this just benefit India (and the rest of the world)?

ljsprague4• 10 months ago

This is good start but he needs to go further. After all, we're a nation; not an economic zone.

klipklop• 10 months ago

Tech companies will just pay the $100k. Over the length of the visa it's still a savings in reduced wages. Never mind that you "lock in" your H1B employees while a US hire will job hop to get a promotion or wage increase since that is the only realistic way to do so these days.

superdude122• 10 months ago

It’s per year.

guyzero5• 10 months ago

Everyone in these threads always points out all sorts of issues with the H1B system, which are mostly true, but it's not like there's a suggestion for a replacement here. This is a de facto shutdown of the program, not a reform. I'd be happy to see a reformed skilled immigration program for the US, but this isn't it.

The US makes up about 4.5% of the global population and it seems silly to think that the FAANG companies and the new AI startups chasing behind them are going to restrict their hiring to this tiny slice of the global talent pool.

The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India, Europe and Canada, which is a net loss for the US.

I myself became a US citizen two years ago after being on a H1B. I was paid the same as all my peers and for all its shortcomings the program worked for me. It stunning to think this has been closed off, killing the main path for skilled immigration into the US.

llm_nerd10• 10 months ago

This is a de facto shutdown of the program

Is it?

Some AI recruitments have seen 9-figure contracts. $100K is actually a surprisingly well-considered number and would still see the intake of legitimate talents, obviously contingent on the specific details. Indeed, those people wouldn't have to compete with masses of consultant trash and the whole lottery system could be done away with.

$100K actually seems perfectly coherent with forcing the program to winnow down to actual talents. People truly good enough to get the employer to pony up $100K to pull them in -- presuming there isn't some kickback fraud happening -- will truly be the best of the best.

The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in

Paradoxically the #1 reason H1B employers bring in H1Bs is to bridge offshoring work. Pull in a dozen Indians and they're your bridge to the big Indian office, which is precisely why Infosys, Tata et al are such H1B users.

guyzero5• 10 months ago

Some AI recruitments have seen 9-figure contracts.

These are crazy outliers who would go through a different visa path anyway. US tech companies still need mid-level workers making low-to-mid six figures. Weirdly O1 visa holder spouses will get an O3 which doesn't allow them to work, making it worse than the H1B/H4 visa for some set of people. (H4s allow spouses to work)

PeterHolzwarth2• 10 months ago

$100,000 per year.

mrheosuper2• 10 months ago

People truly good enough to get the employer to pony up $100K to pull them in -- presuming there isn't some kickback fraud happening -- will truly be the best of the best.

And what stops those people, best of the best, working somewhere else, with much better living standard(EU) ?

In the past, it's because of salary, but now, the 100k/year will either make company to lower their package, or try to extract much more from the employee.

ponector4• 10 months ago

There is a separate talent visa, why should they use H1B and pay extra 100k instead of using it?

the_real_cher5• 10 months ago

Yeah but no offense if you're paid the same as your peers, you're not necessarily exceptional.

There's literally millions of talented Americans out of work in the tech industry right now while companies continue to hire H1B.

The companies post impossible requirement job ads in obscure locations..to get around the requirements to hire Americans first.

guyzero5• 10 months ago

Yeah but no offense if you're paid the same as your peers, you're not necessarily exceptional.

Says you. I work in Lake Wobegon.

guyzero5• 10 months ago

There's between 5 and 16 million tech workers in the US depending whose definition you use. The tech sector unemployment rate is 2.8% per https://www.comptia.org/en-us/about-us/news/press-releases/t...

That is, at most, less than half a million people in the field and the majority of those jobs aren't the ones looking for overseas hires anyway. If we take CompTIA's number of roughly 5M tech workers it's 140,000 people, not "literally millions."

If you have better numbers, please, let us know.

afavour2• 10 months ago

To be clear the H1B is not for exceptional workers. There’s a separate visa category for that.

Gud• 10 months ago

If you're exceptional, by definition so are your peers.

TMWNN5• 10 months ago

The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India

Such offshoring was possible before and after today.

Put another way, if all the H-1B jobs really can be offshored quickly and easily the way so many Indians and anti-Trump people here and elsewhere confidently predict, *that would have happened already*.

Jyaif• 10 months ago

The offshoring has started happening in the last 2 years in some of the big companies, by for example opening offices in Eastern Europe.

I suspect it didn't happen before because these companies were more focused on growth than efficiency.

That being said, thanks to AI parts of the big companies are again focused on growth at all cost.

smt88• 10 months ago

Big Tech chose to get elect an anti-immigrant candidate while relying on immigrant labor. Let them burn themselves down.

kelnos19• 10 months ago

This is a de facto shutdown of the program

Is it? $100k per hire isn't much of a cost to pay for large companies. Smaller companies may -- may -- end up having some trouble with this, but consider that $100k often amounts to less than a yearly base salary (and will pretty much always be less than a year of total comp/total employee cost), not to mention the costs of legal staff that they're already paying to deal with this stuff.

What this may do is cause some of the "body shop" consultancies to drop some of their "low end" business, so they'll focus more on targeting positions with higher salaries. That's... probably a good thing.

And yeah, we may see some higher rates of offshoring, but I don't think that will be significant. And I'm not even really convinced: offshoring is already possible, and in strict dollar terms is already cheaper than going through the H-1B process to bring someone to the US. If companies preferred offshoring, they'd be doing it; clearly the already-higher-cost H-1B program is still their preference.

I agree that this isn't going to fix the H-1B visa system, and is not a reform or even a particularly positive step toward a reform, but I think you're overestimating the negative impact. I really don't think this will change things much at all.

enraged_camel• 10 months ago

> Is it? $100k per hire isn't much of a cost to pay for large companies.

It is $100k per hire per year.

https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-trump-immigration-8d3969...

fooker7• 10 months ago

[flagged]

Aurornis2• 10 months ago

$100K per hire per year.

That's almost as much as the media H1B salary. It's a huge cost overhead. I don't understand how you can be dismissive of a number almost as high as hiring another engineer.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y73• 10 months ago

Smaller companies may -- may

Really? 100k on top of a salary per year? Why would anyone do that?

huevosabio3• 10 months ago

$100k for a startup is a no-go from the onset. This makes foreigners basically unhireable for startups, and probably shuts down founding startups as well?

callc• 10 months ago

The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India, Europe and Canada, which is a net loss for the US.

I’m honestly tired of hearing the argument “if we do X then business will move to another state or out of US”.

Good riddance to the companies that flee from jurisdictions enforcing workers rights, don’t allow exploitation, etc.

The most important thing is protecting people, not fearing the cries of money-making machines.

spacebanana7• 10 months ago

Particularly in tech, where the network effects and first mover advantages are so strong.

California could introduce a million dollar minimum wage for software engineers, ban electricity on Thursdays, raise corporate taxes to 60% and still probably have more new unicorns founded in the subsequent year than Europe.

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

They'll still end up in the US as they can work a year abroad and come in using L1-B program for 5 years (3 + 2 years on renewal).

L1 has no PWD, no min wage requirements (beyond min wage law in US) and is completely uncapped.

gmueckl• 10 months ago

The business must go where the talent pool is if the talent can't be brought to the money. This H1B change is intended to remove a sizable portion of the talent pool from the US, so companies will have to follow (and spend US investor money on wages abroad).

AbstractH242• 10 months ago

So who is going to pay taxes to fund the country? Particularly as the population ages, meaning more costs and fewer workers.

hx8• 10 months ago

This is a de facto shutdown of the program

No, this is just another tariff. If it costs $200k/yr to employee an H1B Software Engineer, and you expect them to work for you for 3 years, it raises the cost of employment from $200k/yr to $233k/yr. It'll discourage people from applying on the margins, which will bring the application rate down and acceptance rate up.

alecst• 10 months ago

AP is reporting that It's $100k/yr. So it wouldn't amortize like that.

dbmnt• 10 months ago

It's an annual fee. It would raise the cost to $300k/yr.

https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-trump-immigration-8d3969...

cerved• 10 months ago

It's not a tariff

kristopolous2• 10 months ago

In this supposed competition with China, Trump is deeply dedicated to giving China every advantage possible.

From defunding science, fining the biggest universities, defunding green energy, making hiring ambitious foreign workers economically unfeasible, replacing technocratic administrators with incompetent lackies with quite literally zero experience, imposing inordinate tariffs ... It's just win after win for the CCP.

Couldn't possibly be more generous

mrtksn2• 10 months ago

Yes, but all these things will have bad long-term effects. The short-term effect would be payment into the federal budget and increase in local employment.

Even with tariffs, the initial effect was to increase purchases before the tariffs hit. Later the companies started eating from their margins instead of increasing prices right away. So it all resulted in increased economic activity and then increased tax payments into the federal government. However, because this is tax on consumption, it will eventually reduce business profits and personal wealth of the consumers. Meanwhile, Trump can claim that the economy is booming and he is collecting huge tax revenues without any negative effects.

remarkEon6• 10 months ago

Sad that we're doing this. The United States couldn't compete and was a poor country with minimal scientific achievement until the H-1B visa was created in 1990.

geye12345• 10 months ago

The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India, Europe and Canada, which is a net loss for the US.

Offshoring can, and ought to be, heavily tariffed.

sinuhe69• 10 months ago

The tariffs are illegal and void. Even if it's implemented, how do you rise tariffs on intangible works? For the planned tariff, US consumers are the ones to bear the brunt of the costs.

ponector4• 10 months ago

Do you know what tariff is? How is it applicable to hiring people in offshore offices?

wnc31412• 10 months ago

H1B's are a invaluable part of our communities and America's immense capital and soft power. However there is also a ~7% unemployment rate of new CS/CE grads. (Not including underemployment). This is after tech firms begging schools to reallocate vast amounts of public money into teeing up young tech employees. With the vast availability of a global workforce, there is little incentive to train junior workers.

Of course much of this could be solved by narrowing the gap between the lowest earnings and highest earnings workers so that the tech career path wasn't so high of stakes. Anybody working should have the opportunity to launch into a dignified adult life. There must be a conversation ultimately about where the vast profits of tech firms should sit within our economy.

theahura• 10 months ago

I've always felt that h1b grants should use second price auctions paid for by the company in question, instead of through lottery. This has all of the benefits of high skill immigration with virtually none of the downsides of hurting the middle class or depressing wages

EGreg• 10 months ago

Just gonna leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koSby3mzX-E

maerF0x02• 10 months ago

There's a ton of abuse, feigned work and loopholes, and rules that undermine the law and also make foreign workers a 2nd class.

Amongst other elements that should be fixed:

* Taxation without representation (i'm suggesting adding the latter, not removing the former)

* The H1B worker must be paid at or above the higher of the median rate at the company for the role or at the employee's request by an independent valuation for the role, this ensures workers are not being paid less

* The fee should be prorated, monthly, over the 6 year span of the H1B, allowing the company to spread it over time and manage cashflow

* The H1B worker should only be contractually required to stay for the average tenure of the role in the industry (which afaik is 18mo right now)

* The H1B worker should be able to easily port their H1B over to another employer. The new employer must pay the fee, prorated, on the H1B, the prior employer will be reimbursed prorated unused fees

declan_roberts6• 10 months ago

They will never allow you to port your h1b to another employer. The companies love h1b because it nails your feet to the floor.

Izikiel433• 10 months ago

That's the L1 though. With an H1B you can get another employer, but the problem is that it has to be done in a narrow period of time, and the other employer has to be willing to sponsor the H1B.

osculum2• 10 months ago

Taxation without representation (i'm suggesting adding the latter, not removing the former)

Happens to permanent residents too, not only employment visas.

maerF0x02• 10 months ago

correct.

I'm not sure the solution, because visas/Perm cannot vote. But at least the latter can (afaik ianal) contribute to political campaigns.

KevinMS• 10 months ago

100k is a bargain for such highly skilled foreign workers you desperately can't find here.

ChicagoDave2• 10 months ago

This will only drive jobs offshore and reduce the H1B population. It doesn’t solve any problems.

This is literally the dumbest administration this country has ever seen. Between tariffs and immigration and now this, it’s like they don’t even know what the consequences of their actions are.

TMWNN5• 10 months ago

This will only drive jobs offshore

This was true before and after today.

ChicagoDave2• 10 months ago

There’s a fundamental difference in talent. H1b talent is often upper class scions from India or China. Offshore talent has always been leveraged for support or staff aug.

It’s entirely possible some H1b’s would happily pay the $100k if they had a guaranteed visa for 5-10+ years, but the vast majority will simply go home and work remotely.

But I believe the effect of this extortion will be a brain drain on U.S. fortune 1000 companies and that will push those same companies to build off shore offices, completely avoiding the administration’s goofiness.

rramadass6• 10 months ago

The H-1B Visa Program and Its Impact on the U.S. Economy (Oct 2024 Fact Sheet) - https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/h1b-vi...

According to many economists, the presence of immigrant workers in the United States creates new job opportunities for native-born workers. This occurs in five ways. First, immigrant workers and native-born workers often have different skill sets, meaning that they fill different types of jobs. As a result, they complement each other in the labor market rather than competing for the exact same jobs. Second, immigrant workers spend and invest their wages in the U.S. economy, which increases consumer demand and creates new jobs. Third, businesses respond to the presence of immigrant workers and consumers by expanding their operations in the United States rather than searching for new opportunities overseas. Fourth, immigrants themselves frequently create new businesses, thereby expanding the U.S. labor market. Fifth, the new ideas and innovations developed by immigrants fuel economic growth.

Similarly, a recent study found that, between 2005 and 2018, an increase in the share of workers within a particular occupation who were H-1B visa holders was associated with a decrease in the unemployment rate within that occupation. Another recent study found that restrictions on H-1B visas (such as rising denial rates) motivate U.S.-based multinational corporations to decrease the number of jobs they offer in this country. Instead, the corporations increase employment at their existing foreign affiliates or open new foreign affiliates—particularly in India, China, and Canada. A study conducted in 2019 revealed that higher rates of successful H-1B applications were positively correlated with an increased number of patents filed and patent citations. Moreover, such startups were more inclined to secure venture capital funding and achieve successful IPOs or acquisitions.

The available data also indicate that H-1B workers do not earn low wages or drag down the wages of other workers. In 2021, the median wage of an H-1B worker was $108,000, compared to $45,760 for U.S. workers in general. Moreover, between 2003 and 2021, the median wage of H-1B workers grew by 52 percent. During the same period, the median wage of all U.S. workers increased by 39 percent. In FY 2019, 78 percent of all employers who hired H-1B workers offered wages to H-1B visa holders that were higher than what the Department of Labor had determined to be the “prevailing wage” for a particular kind of job.

myrmidon5• 10 months ago

One thing that really pisses me off about the whole populist anti-immigration stance is how thankless, hypocritical and selfish the whole thing is:

People want to avoid negative effects from immigration (cultural/language/crimerate)- fine.

But are those people acknowledging how much economical growth was driven by migrant labor over the last half century? Hell no. Would the average alt-righter be willing to sacrifice any fraction of all those compounded gains? Absolutely not- every dollar of tax is too much, even to pay a fraction of the damage that is and will be caused by them (=> energy price/co2 taxation).

As a self-identifying moderate patriot, selfish complainers of that ilk seem a worse plague on their nation than the immigrants they keep whining about.

happytoexplain• 10 months ago

This is an oversimplification and a pretty extreme case of over-categorizing people into groups. People who have problems with immigration aren't automatically alt-right. People who have problems with immigration understand that immigration has also historically provided economic growth - those aren't mutually exclusive things.

myrmidon5• 10 months ago

I'm not saying that everyone critical of immigration is a selfish hypocrite, but "mainstream" alt-right (even/especially european flavors) appears that way to me.

lisbbb5• 10 months ago

I never had a big problem with immigration until it ate literally everything in sight!

yahoozoo3• 10 months ago

Overall “economic growth” of a country is not nearly as important to most people as is their own _personal_ economic growth, opportunity, and stability. Culture, language, and crime rates also typically take priority over the nation’s macro economic growth. Most people don’t care because they are beginning to think a lot of this isn’t worth being the #1 economy in the world, plus nobody has ever explained _why_ it’s a bad thing if the USA isn’t the world’s premier economy.

snovymgodym• 10 months ago

"economic growth" and "GDP" are numbers on a spreadsheet which are only important to economists who serve the elite.

Meanwhile for the last half century the average American has seen declining wealth and wage growth when adjust for inflation, while elite wealth has grown immensely during the same time period. So who is benefitting from "economic growth"? [1]

This is due to many factors, but I'm wholly unconvinced by the neoliberal notion that high immigration doesn't undercut domestic wages.

[1] https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

sciencesama3• 10 months ago

The process is ! Apply for job, get interview, pass interview! If the guy has h1b reduce 30k in salary and recommend hire and move forward !

jjallen• 10 months ago

Are they going to reinvest these funds into educations so our country can fill these roles or just waste it on weapons and unwinnable wars?

I would be totally fine with this if it was the former, but I would bet that it won't be...

guywithahat4• 10 months ago

This might be one of the smarter things this administration has done/is doing. It will cut down on fraud, and ensure the position they're hiring for isn't just some mid-level engineer. H1B applications should be a source of tax revenue, beyond standard taxes.

I sort of wish it had been done 15 years ago but better late then never.

bamboozled5• 10 months ago

I personally think it will be abused to bring in highly undesirable people , because it will turn into a $100k ticket for criminals.

SideburnsOfDoom• 10 months ago

Of course, that's pretty much how the current administration thinks, see also the "Gold card visa" (1).

Specifically, the thinking "Money coming to us is desirable, therefor people who give us lots of money are by definition not undesirable people".

Well, at least dollars are more easily quantified than ethics.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/19/trump-gold-card-vis...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/the-...

bamboozled5• 10 months ago

Why is it “Trump” specifically ? Is there no government anymore ?

anigbrowl5• 10 months ago

Because he's exerting autocratic control over the entire executive branch. How many times does he have to tell you he's doing so before you can recognize it? He talks about it in interviews and on his social media, and not in vague or nuanced terms, but with clear declarative statements like "I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the President." (this example from about 3 weeks ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOxw6Pc_KXw)

SV_BubbleTime7• 10 months ago

Because he's exerting autocratic control over the entire executive branch.

.... As the... head of the executive branch?

ajross3• 10 months ago

It was a White House announcement of a White House policy relying (apparently) on nothing but executive authority. The attribution is correct.

Obviously there are very serious civic questions here (like under what law the authority to levy that fee was granted! Congress controls taxation, not the president). But so far congress and the courts are uninvolved.

The attribution is colloquial, but correct. It's routine to refer to the executive branch by the president's name.

seanmcdirmid5• 10 months ago

If H-1B workers are too expensive to hire, tech employers have two options:

1. Hire more American workers (pay more, maybe they don't exist so don't hire)

2. Move their offices overseas (already happening, we should see an acceleration)

Ok, I guess AI could also start replacing more roles, but we won't see that productivity for a year or two.

If companies choose 2 over 1, it will mean fewer jobs overall in the USA (including support and service jobs).

kilroy123• 10 months ago

What about just hiring remote contractors?

seanmcdirmid5• 10 months ago

Logistics and vetting mostly. The Indian body shops have a business model that already does this, actually: you hire the body shop, they send over one or two more senior engineers who then act as liaisons that farm out work back in India where most of the body shop is still located. My guess is that you'll just see more of that going on, although the R&D tax rules are getting weird with respect to amortization and out sourced labor.

pyuser5833• 10 months ago

Yep - I expect to see a lot more job postings for overseas. Not the time to encourage offshoring.

declan_roberts6• 10 months ago

This is happening in tandem with work to tax offshoring ("No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act")

Companies could already hire offshore for 50% of what they pay in America, so I don't expect a dramatic change there.

https://thefactcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/No-T...

the_real_cher5• 10 months ago

If you're concerned about 'brain drain' remember O-1 visas are for the truly exceptional immigrants which remain in effect.

H1B visas are for rank and file employees with just a skill.

This allows employers to indenture servitude employees, depresses American wages, increases unemployment, increases rent prices in areas with high levels of immigration, and hurts American culture.

Most jobs are not that hard and a company should invest in Americans instead of immigrants if it want's to continue to do business here and enjoy the fruits of America.

throwa5885667• 10 months ago

I wish the US would just return to "racial" quotas like pre-WW2 instead of all this huffing and heaving.

MAGA (and most Americans) don't seem to have any issue with immigration -what they have a issue with is the culture/skin-color/ethnicity of who immigrates. Indeed this is where the country quotas come from - Europe with 20 odd countries has 20x the priority than India or China.

If the US had an ounce of honestly they'd just make this explicit instead of beating around the bush. Since people have better opinion of the Chinese and other "white" East-Asians (admittedly the fairer gender only), just restrict it explicitly to "race" of Caucasians and there "Yellow" races.

It'll save Indians and other "suburbans" a lot of trouble not dealing with this farce of "liberalism" going forward. I genuinely mean this - given how things are going, Indians will find themselves in the place of Jews in Nazi Germany quite soon. And much like the useless British-colonial state that governed Israel then, the vestigial British state in India which is as internet upon Anglo-American triumph today, can't and will do jack shit for them.

pessimizer• 10 months ago

You're projecting.

this2shallPass• 10 months ago

How little do you know about the experience of Jews in Nazi Germany?

And much like the useless British-colonial state that governed Israel then, the vestigial British state in India which is as internet upon Anglo-American triumph today, can't and will do jack shit for them.

Are you saying that Indian people wouldn't be allowed to immigrate to India?

Minutes of research say current Indian law allows people of Indian descent but not citizens to get Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) — a special immigration status for foreign nationals of Indian origin.

You're eligible if you are:

1. A former Indian citizen (who gave up Indian citizenship, e.g., to get U.S. or UK citizenship), or

2. A descendant (up to great-grandparent level) of an Indian citizen, or

3. The spouse of an Indian citizen or an OCI cardholder (subject to conditions)

With OCI, you can have:

1. Unlimited stay in India

2. Right to work, own property, and open bank accounts.

India could change it's laws, keep all the non-citizens out (or even citizens, what can't we imagine in this fantasy story). India could deny OCI to most every person that applies for its green card like status. But under current laws in your unlikely story, they seem like they'll do something.

I'd expect they'd fly as many Indian people as they could out of the US like many countries do in times of war. Not that this scenario will ever come to pass.

jmyeet• 10 months ago

I've been through this immigration system. It's capricious, arbitrary and Kafkaesque.

It is absolutely clear that there is H1B abuse and I'm looking directly at the bodyshops like Infosys and Tata. Here's how it goes:

1. Apply for as many visas as possible. This is done primarily for Indian nationals for reasons which will become clear;

2. As the employer you really don't care which ones are approved or how many because what you're going to do is farm out those employees, whether there's 1000 of them or 10,000 of them;

3. Because there is an annual quota and applications have expanded so much, the chance of success is about 1 in 3 currently in the annual lottery. And a Principal Engineer in AI at Google or Meta has the same chance of success as a junior developer at Tata. There may be other options for the first person such as EB1 or NIW or L1 but that's really beyond the scope;

4. As part of this process you have to "prove" you cannot fill a position with a US resident or citizen. There is a whole process for this to minimize the number of applicants and to reject any who happen to find your newspaper ad and apply. This also applies to the Green card Labor Certification too, to a higher degree. Part of this is to make sure the employee is getting paid enough for their job and area. This is called a prevailing wage determination ("PWD"). This process doens't really work, which I'll get into later;

5. So you, as an Indian national won the H1B lottery and your visa is approved. You come to the US and hope Tata finds you a job where they farm you out at $200-500 per hours while paying you $50 or thereabouts;

6. Now the employer starts doing things they're technically not allowed to do, like if they can't find you a job they stop paying you. You may fall below the PWD because of this;

7. A H1B is valid for 3 years, extendable by another 3 for a total of 6 years, after which you're technically meant to leave the country. But what happens is the employer will file for an employment-based green card for you. If they do this in the first 5 years you can remain while that case is pending;

8. There are annual quotas for how many green cards are issued for each employment category. Additionally no more than 7% each year can be issued to any single country, based entirely on your country of birth, not your actual citizenship. And if you're married and have children under age, they will also count against these quotas.

9. So because H1B applicants are disproportionately Indian natioanals, there is a MASSIVE bottleneck for employment based green cards. As such, there is a HUGE backlog. Currently, USCIS is processing green cards for EB3 applicants from India who have a priority date of August 2013. That means their PERM was approved on or before August 2013;

10. So this is how these bodyshops can abuse Indian nationals. Those nationals really can't leave their job. Not easily anywway. There are laws that if they change jobs they get to keep their priority date but the new employer has to file an entirely new green card applications, including doing the entire PERM process again. Oh and if the employer moves area or their jobs changes significantly, it may invalidate their PERM too.

So these bodyshops can keep essentially indentured servants for 15-20+ years and at any time can fire that person. The power imbalance is so massive. This suppresses wages for everyone.

And these people are in the same cateogry as highly paid engineers in tech companies who have substantially better conditions.

Also, at any point along the way the USCIS can simply decide to take a whole bunch of extra time for literally no reason. They have a policy to randomly audit ~30% of applications. Why? They will never tell you. Their arguemnt is to avoid people "gaming" the system by working out the audit criteria so there's a bunch of random "noise" in there. Literally.

Well that doesn't sound bad right? Extra scrutiny? Except now you've added 1-2 years to the processing for literally no reason. You may get a request for evidence ("RFE") out of it too, which might add another year too. This can go multiple rounds too. I know people who spent 5 years going through audits and RFEs. One in particular is an engineering director at Google now.

While tech companies like Google, Meta, etc are better than the bodyshops they absolutely use this system to suppress wages, again because of the power imbalance.

It doesn't have to be this way. Take Switzerland as an example. I'm rusty on the details but IIRC if you're on a B permit (work permit like an H1B, tied to an employer) for 5 or 10 years (EU citizen is 5, otherwise 10, generally), you automatically get a C permit, which is basically a green card.

All this to say is that I have mixed feelings on this $100k fee. It will absolutely cut demand for H1Bs. It will decimate new graduate H1Bs but there's an argument that US residents and citizens should get priority for entry-level positions anyway, right?

If all this comes with much less paperwork, like skipping the whole LC process, then maybe large employers will pay it because they absolutely do spend a fortune on immigration lawyers.

If anything, the entire immigration system needs an overhaul but there's no political will for that. There are no votes in it. Quite the opposite: any serious attempt can be dismissed as "they're stealing our jobs".

I also think layoffs at large companies should absolutely preclude you from sponsoring H1Bs entirely for 2+ years.

cadamsdotcom• 10 months ago

Wow. With the exploitation you describe, a $100k fee will only mildly worsen the ROI on exploiting these people.

densh• 10 months ago

Some details on the Swiss side:

There are two variations of the B permit one can get. An unrestricted B permit isn't tied to a specific employer and provides a path toward permanent residence (C permit) within five years for EU citizens or ten years for non-EU citizens. Based on my experience, EU citizens almost always get an unrestricted permit and are treated relatively well by the immigration process: at their first application, they receive a five-year B permit, and at the first renewal five years later, they automatically get a C permit. As a EU citizen you just need to find a job, and your right to work is essentially unrestricted.

The non-EU path is quite different. A non-EU citizen only gets an unrestricted B permit if they prove they have special skills that are not currently available on the local job market. There is a yearly quota for such permits. One can also be unlucky and get an L permit, which is for temporary work only. Moreover, restricted B requires yearly renewal with a demonstration of ongoing employment at each renewal.

If you get a restricted B permit (or L), you don't have any direct path to a C permit, no matter how many years you've lived in Switzerland. You can complete your bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees and continue working for a university as a contractor afterward, and still not be eligible for the path toward a C permit after over a decade of living in the country. To get a C permit, the last two years prior to the application must have been on an unrestricted B permit, working a full-time, unlimited-term job contract. The change to an unrestricted B permit requires you to have become a "special talent" during those prior years; otherwise, it won't be granted.

bottlepalm• 10 months ago

Good, but this still doesn't fix the flood of OPT workers (baby h1b's) that are crowding out Americans from getting jobs. I know, my company put out reqs for full stack devs, got hundreds of OPT candidates and are hiring them instead of domestic workers. You can't even discriminate against them as that'd be illegal. Good job America. They all have advanced US degrees, paying little for undergrad in India, while Americans are bankrupt from their undergrad. Unable to compete. The fact that they'll accept lower wages so they can upgrade to h1b's later is icing on the cake.

r0m4n0• 10 months ago

I work for a big tech company that was already hiring a ton in Canada, I have to imagine this is going to add massive amounts of fuel to the flames. Are they just going to accept that offshoring is the next best alternative? And by offshoring, I mean, immigrants moving to Canada and working for American companies because their work visas are better

diogenescynic2• 10 months ago

If this goes through, I will be extremely over-joyed. Kudos to Trump for doing what is right for the average American and bucking his donors.

throwawa142233• 10 months ago

A broken clock is still right sometimes.

bubblethink2• 10 months ago

This is a net positive action for the following reasons: The chuds have been clamoring for this for a long time. You can see every past thread on HN all the way back to the December blowup on twitter with Elon. At the same time, the economy is lagging and the admin's more direct measures to drum up support from the base such as chaining and deporting Koreans at the Hyundai factory are tanking future prospects for the economy and are causing diplomatic headaches. This current announcement gives the admin a way out by throwing some meat at the base before the midterms while knowing that this won't pass muster as they don't have the authority.

Izikiel433• 10 months ago

as they don't have the authority.

Isn't this a change USCIS makes? Or does it have to go through congress?

bubblethink2• 10 months ago

Congress. This will cause interim disruption though while the lawsuits play out.

reply00r123• 10 months ago

I ran into a guy making double six figures for like the last 7 years at a known public tech company. He was literally doing the most basic DevOps (Terraform). Nothing fancy. Zero ability to program. No willingness or desire to learn programming. He was an H1B. That blew me away. How is it possible that you have a guy in the US for 10 years who never bothered learning to code doing a 200K / year job. The abuse of H1B is crazy. He told me he had "tried to find a job" but "they all require programming." I am not even a tech background and I have learned to program. Completely insane imo. This was stuff you could teach a highschool student, no degree required.

anigbrowl5• 10 months ago

He's kinda smart though. Automating yourself out of a job is a mug's game, and not everyone wants to or should go into management.

SV_BubbleTime7• 10 months ago

fwiw, which is nothing. If I saw one of my employees write lazy slacker nonsense like this, I'd fire them. I read some of your other posts in this thread, perhaps the issues with the world are closer to you than you realize?

zem• 10 months ago

as a long-time programmer, sysadmin/sre/devops is a whole different mindset and skillset. i would be neither willing nor able to do that guy's job; i don't fault him for not wanting to do mine. clearly since he keeps being paid his $200k/year he is delivering a lot more than $200k worth of stability and uptime to the company, no coding required.

peripitea4• 10 months ago

How exactly is the system being abused by this guy being paid $200k?

throwacct• 10 months ago

I think the premise the OP is pointing at is that this could be a position for a US citizen.

missedthecue• 10 months ago

Double six figures is a hilarious phrase

lawlessone• 10 months ago

This feels like groundhog day, didn't he already do this?

punkbit• 10 months ago

What stops companies from hiring talent remotely?

We are in 2025!

Decentralisation is important due to the high cost of living in cities. Bring life to less populated areas.

jppope3• 10 months ago

Off the top of my head, the R&D tax code changes...

mlinhares• 10 months ago

Illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, permanent residents, citizens, they’ll come after everyone.

w10-1• 10 months ago

This should increase political donations, cryptocurrency bribe purchases, and social compliance among tech companies dependent on H1B, whether it becomes policy or not. For that reason, you can expect no resolution before the mid-term elections, and a corresponding race to secure H1B’s before any policy change.

It’s too bad policy won’t actually track economic needs or fairness; it’s mainly to drive the expansion of the political franchise.

int0x29• 10 months ago

So they'll just hire in India instead but now the taxes won't be paid here. Marvelous.

yodsanklai7• 10 months ago

Unless Trump bullies companies to close their foreign offices. I'm pretty concerned with that as that would impact me. That being said, I don't see how FAANG could operate only with US citizens.

cmurf4• 10 months ago

This apparently goes into effect in 24 hours. And applies to current H1-B holders. Entry isn't permitted until the $100K is paid.

https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...

TheAdamist• 10 months ago

News flash at 11, i.t. body shops to impose $100k indentured servitude debt on h1b seekers.

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

Visa fees can't be transferred to employees.

afavour2• 10 months ago

Putting all else aside: if you’re an H1B holder currently outside the US you must return within 24 hours or you’re on the hook for $100k:

https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...

Unfathomably cruel.

speff• 10 months ago

I've been hearing that H1B holders are currently trying to stay within the US in fear of not being let back in or because of shenanigans like this[0]. Wonder how many people are currently looking for a flight.

[0]: Oh, it looks like the bsky link has an article with companies advising as such - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/31/immigra...

yalogin5• 10 months ago

Oh! This is unexpected, I thought it’s only for new applications, asking every h1b holder to pay 100k is just unfathomable. We will see thousands of layoffs and people moving out on an unimaginable scale.

seanieb2• 10 months ago

They said at the signing that it was per year. No idea if it’s applicable to existing h1-b’s.

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lz7tewnfrr23

yibg• 10 months ago

This is announced with so much confusion and ambiguity too. Does it apply to current visa holders? Don't know. How do companies pay the fee? Don't know. Also announced on Friday night to go into effect Sunday midnight. Probably a feature though not a bug.

dudus• 10 months ago

This link is dead already. Not sure if this is correct, it truly is confusing.

linksbro• 10 months ago

Deleted the below posts out of an abundance of caution. Despite the words of the Proclamation, an unnamed White House official told New York Times that they intend to apply the $100,000 only to new applicants only.
If that is correct, the implications are not as urgent.

https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...

vjvjvjvjghv2• 10 months ago

It's kind of ironic that the party of tax cuts recently tries to solve problems with taxes like tariffs and now this H1B fee.

slackfan• 10 months ago

Finally, Hooray!

unsupp0rted• 10 months ago

T-minus 48 hours until some judge somewhere deems this outside presidential powers. Because nothing apparently is within presidential powers.

aussieguy1234• 10 months ago

Well I guess this is great for Australia, maybe we'll have our own rival silicon valley soon.

aurareturn3• 10 months ago

The reason silicon valley works is because it has a giant market that can support products and services before they can go global. Same reason why China has its own tech hubs.

oytis7• 10 months ago

SV companies are mostly selling globally from day 1

daft_pink4• 10 months ago

So is this requiring the $100k fee payment for all H1B visas including recent college grads or just H1B visa applicants from outside the country?

It says that the payment is for H1B visa applicants who are currently outside the country?

cyanydeez2• 10 months ago

Gonna be a fast lane visa for companies that cancel liberals or pay fealty to trump.

Lets not act like this is a good faith adjustment of concerns.

keeda5• 10 months ago

A lot of the discussion is about foreign workers competing with native ones and dragging salaries and employment down. This is a simplistic view, because it overlooks the fact that an insufficient labor supply keeps companies from growing faster, which in turn keeps them from hiring even more people.

So there is a tension between competition and increased opportunities and wage growth through increased company growth.

But how does this work out in practice? Luckily, there have been a lot of studies about the impact of the H1B program, which you can find on Google Scholar or SSRN. An extremely quick scan shows mixed findings that are hard to summarize, which is understandable because the dynamics are complex. (Contemplating getting Gemini to do a Deep Research report on this.)

So to narrow things down, I looked for empirical studies that focus on the specific counter-factual, "how would native workers fare if there were no H1B?" Interestingly, while I actually found some, even the recent studies (from 2022-2025) rely on empirical data from 2006 - 2008. That was when the H1B moved to a lottery system, creating a natural experiment allowing for comparison between firms that won and lost the lottery. (One study does find that limited data from 2022 corroborates its findings.) Not perfect, but better than hypotheticals.

Here's a government page with a very brief overview of two relevant studies: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12966 (The page doesn't scroll, but the PDF can be downloaded.)

To summarize, the studies find that there was no negative impact on native-born workers in terms of employment, and in terms of wages, some saw increases and others saw decreases in the range of 3-5%, depending on age, tenure and level of education.

But interestingly, the 2025 study also found that winning a lottery also increased the chance by 2.5% that the firm survived. Causation and correlation etc. aside the implications for employment are clear: if a firm does not survive, all employees, native or foreign, lose their jobs. This is an example of the dynamic I mentioned above.

Beyond these studies, I follow a labor economist and it's fascinating to see how these dynamics have been playing out over the last few years in the broader economy. As a relevant example, there is a credible theory that increased immigration was what helped the US manage its inflation crisis:

https://fortune.com/2024/04/12/immigration-inflation-economy...

newfriend9• 10 months ago

But this doesn't match reality. The surplus of labor has allowed big tech to be exceedingly picky during the interview process. You will now fail interviews if you're unable to solve two Leetcode Hards in 45 minutes.

If there was insufficient labor pool as you suggest, interviews would become less selective and wages would rise.

keeda5• 10 months ago

Tech interviewing has been dysfunctional for a long time, but yes it is much worse now because the tech job market is terrible. However I have previously commented (along with citations where possible) about how this job market is deliberately depressed. BigTech has achieved this through a few mechanisms, namely a) increasingly offshoring jobs while simultaneously b) freezing headcount in the US, and c) performing significant layoffs triggered by Elon's shenanigans at Twitter. And a highly under-reported aspect of all this is that these layoffs are causing much higher pressure on the remaining employees, which is leading to record levels of burnouts.

I'm letting my cynicism show here, but I think this is a power move by the capital class to show labor their place after an exceptionally strong labor market during ZIRP. This is much more recent and not related to the H1B program.

insane_dreamer2• 10 months ago

It's not a bad proposal, though raising the salary requirements would be better. This essentially does that though since a company has to account for it in their hiring costs. IOW it costs the company $100K/year to hire a foreigner vs a local, which offsets the low salary that you might be offering that foreigner in order to "save costs" vs hiring local.

However, the unsolved problem is that this could just lead to more offshoring by these same tech companies who are abusing the program now. Not sure if there's any way to stop that.

docmars• 10 months ago

Nice!

kjsingh• 10 months ago

Thank you Trump for answering the forever question on the mind of a techie in Vancouver: Should I move to USA?

cs_throwaway• 10 months ago

Curious what this will do for faculty. Common to use H1B as a bridge for a few months before green card. New CS faculty salaries cap out at 180K at the high end.

yalogin5• 10 months ago

This is going to exacerbate the already kicked off reverse brain drain. University applications have fallen off the cliff this year and now with this there is no incentive for folks to come to the US. All this talent going back will cause enormous opportunity for wealth creation in India and other countries.

yalogin5• 10 months ago

Just learned that there are about 15k doctors on h1b and if a good chunk of them leave it’s going to be disastrous for the fly over states. Hospitals are already shutting down and much will only increase once the Medicaid cuts take effect. And on top of that the visa issue will absolutely dent healthcare

dsmark3• 10 months ago

I would think the hospital industry would get an exemption from this as it is critical to the US.

QuiEgo• 10 months ago

Friendly reminder the US government is using it's legal authority to compel people to show their social media posts. At some point, hacker news is bound to get on their "to check" list.

Post nothing here you would not mind showing to a border guard.

Like seriously, I get this is very impactful, but don't risk your livelihood to argue with internet strangers.

sizzle• 10 months ago

The international student —> h1-b pipeline is unaffected it seems?

ojbyrne2• 10 months ago

Seems to me the salient part of this is not being discussed:

“The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.”

More command economy, more opportunity for graft.

bettercallsalad3• 10 months ago

There is also something geopolitically playing here. Trump administration recently threatened India with tariffs and when it didn’t budge, many of its key MAGA voices (Bannon and as such) tweeted asking for the exact same thing he just did.

Recently Trump also met with Indias arch enemy Pakistan’s de facto leader (military chief) in Washington and shortly following that you had Saudi-Pakistan NATO like alliance announced (of course US is major allies for both of those countries). It is interesting because pre-election Trump touted many Indians and even had Modi joining him in one of the largest Indian gatherings. But I guess Trump admin being the wild card it has always been policy wise had a shift. What that leads to is still to be seen.

Recent SCO summit where India and China had some shared alliance pledges can give some hints what’s to come but it’s interesting he didn’t so far do so with Chinese students and had in fact a U turn on allowing 600000 students with their visas as part of the trade negotiations.

sagarm• 10 months ago

I think most people could agree that H1Bs allocated to Wipro, Infosys, and TATA are wasted. This reform doesn't seem like the right way to address that and retain positive aspects of the program, like the foreign student pipeline.

osnium123• 10 months ago

Won’t this mean that companies will move jobs to India, China or even Canada?

LPisGood12• 10 months ago

Why did they not do that before, if it was feasible?

nvrmnd2• 10 months ago

before there was no $100k/year cost to H1Bs, see post title.

Aeolun• 10 months ago

It didn’t save them 100k/worker per year at the time. That is a lot of motivation.

588edbdf2• 10 months ago

Because H-1B workers had the ability to demand higher compensation via sponsorship and relocation to the US. Employers could say "no we won't sponsor you" but these workers are in demand due to their technical skills and could counter with "then I'll join another company that will".

If you remove the option for sponsorship then these workers will still be working their jobs because they're talented and in demand, they'll just be doing it from their home country instead for lower compensation.

rayiner17• 10 months ago

Because doing business in India isn’t that great.

yodsanklai7• 10 months ago

They do that already, lots of US tech companies have SWEs outside of the US. With the new policy, it will add incentive to do it even more. Companies will have to either lower the hiring bar or hiring offshore.

closeparen6• 10 months ago

Silicon Valley's big H1B employers also have international engineering sites. US teams tend to pull in their favorites from the international sites, and the international sites can use the possibility of relocation as an incentive.

Tiktaalik4• 10 months ago

They do already. British Columbia is a really good place to open up shop because it's on the same time zone as Silicon Valley. Many companies have done so. I'm surprised there haven't been more tbh, but maybe now with this change we'll see an acceleration.

dismalaf• 10 months ago

They've already had the option to do this all along...

Philadelphia• 10 months ago

Most companies, even fairly small ones, already have a substantial number of contract tech employees in India, Eastern Europe, or South America.

foofoo12• 10 months ago

Nope, it means the people that would have gone to US will to to Canada instead.

1over137• 10 months ago

Canada has reduced immigration a lot recently though.

kevin_thibedeau6• 10 months ago

I had a former employer with an Indian subsidiary for this very purpose. The problem is that there is no loyalty to the company and it becomes a revolving door of inexperienced people who couldn't get into H-1B. Always fun when they lie you about testing a feature that you haven't implemented yet. Incidentally, they also introduced ransomware into the entire corporate network (domestic IT was also barely competent).

breadwinner15• 10 months ago

Yes, see: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2024/09/16/the-micros...

lttlrck• 10 months ago

Of course it depends on the nature of the business but push that too far and you can lock yourself out of projects that require work to be performed on US soil.

I work for a very small company and we've seen by that stipulation a couple of times on anything _remotely_ close to defense/MIC/security.

And the administration can tighten those screws further if it desires.

(I am the only H1B in the history of the company, now a citizen. It would have been impossible to have taken this path with this alleged financial burden)

herval2• 10 months ago

Brazil and Canada will absorb a lot of big tech headcount. Google et al are already moving lots of headcount to both countries. This will accelerate it, even if it’s struck down

irusensei3• 10 months ago

Maybe Canada but Brazil doesn't have political and economic stability for this.

fooey4• 10 months ago

the PE who bought the company I work for already have a large Indian subsidiary and effectively require a 1:1 ratio

bitsage2• 10 months ago

The cost of hiring in the US versus elsewhere is already greater than $100k for the type of tech firm that can just open an international office. I took the base salaries of Google SWEs on levels.fyi for NYC, London, Bengaluru, and Toronto, multiplied them by the standard 1.4 for overhead, and realized the US is already significantly more expensive than most developed countries, let alone the Global South. Companies clearly value employing in America despite the cost.

jppope3• 10 months ago

this news is tied with the tax code corrections... All R&D work in a foreign country is to be depreciated over 15 years, it can immediately be depreciated for an American worker.

rPlayer6554• 10 months ago

The title on HN conflicts with the truth and the title of the article. It is 100k per application (which gives the visa for 3 years) not 100k per year.

LPisGood12• 10 months ago

I think this is an upfront cost, not an annual cost.

nvrmnd2• 10 months ago

From CNN:

"Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters on a call Friday evening that the administration came to the fee of $100,000 per year, plus vetting costs, after talking with companies.

He noted that the payment structure is still under discussion with the Department of Homeland Security, in terms of “whether we’re going to charge the $300,000 up front or $100,000 a year for the three years.”

sigwinch4• 10 months ago

It’ll be struck down in court within a year. The question is: who’ll be brave and bring the case?

SpicyLemonZest12• 10 months ago

I will be demanding that my company do so, and I think quite a lot of the people reading this should do the same.

k33n• 10 months ago

It is an annual cost. This will dramatically shake up the US tech industry. I expect to see engineering budgets increase, and less Americans struggling to get interviews and ultimately jobs at companies HQ'ed here.

The originally stated purpose of the H1-B program was to import top-tier elite talent but anyone who watched it evolve saw that it became terribly exploitative. I've watched as companies that I've worked for have given 1/4 market rate or worse to H1-B hires. They got addicted to cheap talent. It stopped being about talent on the hiring side and more about increasing head-count at a major discount.

Bring in top talent, but pay them what they're worth if you do. A top-talent elite hire should easily be worth double what a native-born top-talent elite hire would be worth if this program can just do what it was designed to do.

rogerrogerr• 10 months ago

I hope this is the outcome. Can anyone convince me that these companies won’t just hire more Indians in India (or outsource to Indian companies)?

wonderwonder7• 10 months ago

My hope is that this unleashes American tech workers and the US market again. There is almost no reason to apply for H1B anymore except for the original purpose of hiring workers with very unique skill sets that cannot be found in the US. This could be the most monumental thing this Admin does for tech workers as long as there is not some monkey paw aspect to this

wonderwonder7• 10 months ago

annual cost and they raised the minimum pay to 150k so now its a minimum of 250k to hire an h1B. Or they can hire a new american grad, pay them 80k and train them

tlhunter• 10 months ago

It looks like any H-1B holders currently traveling abroad need to return within 24 hours:

https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...

djohnston13• 10 months ago

Ohhh no, how will we afford our sub-standard DBA cough I mean world class 1% talent?

tomrod• 10 months ago

What a shame. We face a mounting demographic crisis from low birth rates already, mostly from economic pressures and lack of personal decisions in healthcare for women. So many wrong directions.

LPisGood12• 10 months ago

I think this is extremely tangential to the article, but is there any evidence that any mounting American demographic crisis has anything to do with abortion being overturned?

kg• 10 months ago

Personal decisions in healthcare are about more than just abortion.

For example, if miscarriages are criminalized, and access to birth control is restricted - both real things that have been attempted or have actually happened in the US as a part of anti-choice policies - the only safe choice is to not have sex, ever. Which means you're probably never going to have kids, instead of before where there was a chance you'd get pregnant and then decide whether to have the child or not. Now it's too risky to even have a chance of getting pregnant if you have no autonomy. I certainly would never risk it in a state with anti-choice policies.

The intent of these policies might be to raise the birth rate, but I'm not sure they're going to do that. We'll see, I guess.

IMO the demographic crisis is more likely to be influenced by other factors, like the rising costs of raising children, the increasing constraints and pressures on parents, etc. But those policies don't help.

WorkerBee28474• 10 months ago

...mostly from economic pressures and lack of personal decisions in healthcare for women

I've got some bad news for you about, well, pretty much all of human history...

ranger_danger3• 10 months ago

But H-1Bs are for specialized workers... somehow I don't think that is a meaningful contributor to overall low birth rates, but I could be wrong.

trallnag• 10 months ago

low birth rates [...] from economic pressures and lack of personal decisions in Healthcare for women

This is an outlandish and ridiculous hypothesis with zero substance to it. All research points to it being the other way around. They higher the economic pressures and the less freedom people have in reproductive healthcare, the higher the birth rates. The moment Germany introduced the birth control drugs, the birth rate dropped.

If a country develops from the level of Somali to something like Germany and the birth rate tanks to somewhere slightly above 1, increasing the birth rate by maybe 0.1 by enabling more personal decisions has literally zero impact.

Of course I'm still a proponent of decreasing economic pressure on parents and enabling reproductive freedoms like pre-implementation diagnostics. The consequences on birth rate is just something we have to deal with one way or another.

rideontime• 10 months ago

Bit ridiculous that this article leaves as a footnote that this rule change is illegal and likely to be struck down by the first lawsuit.

LPisGood12• 10 months ago

I think it is kind of a footnote. Many things this administration has done are illegal and struck down by the first lawsuit but later let stand by a friendly Supreme Court.

softwaredoug5• 10 months ago

That's true on administrative state issues (Trump being allowed to fire people in the exec. branch). It's not clear this is a 100% guarantee for everything beyond that. (Maybe a 65% guarantee).

justinator7• 10 months ago

And should be added, let stand by the Supreme Court without given a reasoning on why it stands. Just all shadow dockets.

Corruption by another name. The canary is already dead.

paxys2• 10 months ago

The trump administration has not complied with any unfavorable court ruling about immigration why would they care about this one?

SpicyLemonZest12• 10 months ago

They've complied with a number of unfavorable court rulings about immigration, but precisely because that's what they're supposed to do it goes much less viral.

rayiner17• 10 months ago

The one ruling they arguably didn’t comply with was overturned by the Supreme Court, who held the district court didn’t even have jurisdiction in the first place.

yalogin5• 10 months ago

Interesting. Does this also require a law to be passed?

freetime24• 10 months ago

Apologies if this comes across as pedantic, but it isn’t a footnote. It’s part of the actual article, just included near the end in the “Looking Ahead” section. If they omitted it entirely or put it in an actual footnote, then yes I agree that would be a noteworthy omission. But it feels extreme to call it ridiculous when it’s right there in the article.

The other thing I’ll say is that even if this is struck down by the courts (which is not certain give the Supreme Court’s recent support for the president), that can take a while and this could still have a real impact on people. Many people thought the president imposing tariffs was unconstitutional, but as right now those tariffs are actually in effect. Companies that employ H-1B workers (and the workers themselves) will need to start planning for this immediately regardless of whether or not it is eventually struck down.

The last thing I’m wondering is when you say it’s ridiculous, do you just mean sloppy reporting? Or are you implying that the author has some ulterior motive? And if the latter, what do you think that ulterior motive is?

ahmeneeroe-v26• 10 months ago

Not likely. It appears this rather awkward method is actually built to keep this well within the president's power

sixothree• 10 months ago

Maybe they felt it would automatically be implied.

mancerayder8• 10 months ago

Here's a thought. Why not pin the H1B tech acceptance rate, forget high fees, to some measures around tech unemployment rates? A recent reading I read showed a higher unemployment in tech than non-tech jobs. I wish I could find the article that mentioned it (most likely Bloomberg or WSJ in the last two weeks). Doesn't that put the stats where the mouth is?

disillusioned• 10 months ago

I saw that a certain reading of this language:

Section 1. Restriction on Entry. (a) Pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), the entry into the United States of aliens as nonimmigrants to perform services in a specialty occupation under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000 — subject to the exceptions set forth in subsection (c) of this section. This restriction shall expire, absent extension, 12 months after the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025.

Could be interpreted to mean that anyone who leaves the country on a _current_ H1B and attempts to return might be blocked if they don't have proof of the payment having been made, despite the fact that no process currently exists to remit said payment.

I'd love to say it's doubtful this administration would do something so callous, asinine, and cruel, but...

aks_tldr• 10 months ago

Looks like

burroisolator• 10 months ago

That is my interpretation.

Regardless of whether you think imposing a $100k fee on H1Bs is a good idea or not, there is no way that a 2 day deadline makes sense from an implementation perspective. On a weekend too. This is just going to cause panic and confusion at the border.

nelox2• 10 months ago

No, the language clearly limits the restriction to those “aliens … currently outside the United States.” “Entry” in this context means seeking admission (or re-entry) to the U.S. from abroad, under a new petition or visa that starts outside. It is tied to new petitions, and specifically those where the beneficiary is abroad.

“(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall restrict decisions on petitions not accompanied by a $100,000 payment for H-1B specialty occupation workers … who are currently outside the United States …”

bhouston6• 10 months ago

This is actually smart. Many H1B visas are used to undermine fair labor wages for already local talent. We should ensure that H1B visas are for actual unique talent and not just to undercut local wages.

H1B is ripe with abuse - this article by Bloomberg says that half of all H1-B visas are used by Indian staffing firms that pay significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing:

- https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-h1b-visa-middlemen-c...

djohnston13• 10 months ago

The only way to do that (and preserve H1B) is to entirely disconnect the subcontinent from the application process. Their top companies exist only to scam immigration programs around the world, it is their raison d'être.

truncate4• 10 months ago

So both people and companies from those countries?

bhouston6• 10 months ago

I have met very talented people from the subcontinent. I think the issue is the H1B structure is open to fraud.

liquid_thyme8• 10 months ago

Thats complete bullshit. Nobody can "steal" a job. Americans are lining up to give them jobs.

softwaredoug5• 10 months ago

OTOH many H1Bs come with the intent of moving to the US and permanent residence eventually. Which makes our workforce stronger.

wonderwonder7• 10 months ago

Unless you are an American tech worker looking for a job

bhouston6• 10 months ago

OTOH many H1Bs come with the intent of moving to the US and permanent residence eventually. Which makes our workforce stronger.

Sure. But we are arguing about two separate things here. I am pro-immigration. But I am also against using immigrant primarily to depress wages.

fooey4• 10 months ago

there's a lot of new policy that seems to be intentionally inflicting severe brain drain

the US is no longer the clear destination for the best and brightest

epistasis8• 10 months ago

This is very short term thinking, in that it assumes a constant amount of work and ignores the global competition for labor.

If the US loses its massive lead in the network effects of a large labor pool, the amount of work in the US will shrink, both by moving to other countries and less overall innovation.

This is not a beneficial move for most software engineers.

ahmeneeroe-v26• 10 months ago

There is not a global competition for talent.

How many people on here can truly say that they were considering between two different countries. That doesn’t happen at scale.

There is a global competition for coming to Western Europe, Canada, and the US

fastball12• 10 months ago

The competition isn't for labor, it is for net productivity. These are not the same thing. As anyone who has ever worked on a team can tell you, "more team members" absolutely does not equate to a more productive team. In fact we have a plethora of phrases and anecdotes which indicate the opposite is often true.

wrt271Ja2• 10 months ago

Companies are laying off people, so there is no competition for labor.

tnel775• 10 months ago

I suspect the very best engineers will be worth every penny of that $100k/yr and the amount of abuse will drop. There is the very real risk that companies will move to outsource more roles, but I will personally be boycotting them.

trhway• 10 months ago

It could have been a smart move if it were staged like this :

  20K H1Bs with $30K fee
  20K H1Bs with $60K fee
  20K H1Bs with $100K fee
  unlimited H1Bs with $200K

Any oversubscription in a category - you have a choice of either going through lottery or paying for the higher category.

mikert892• 10 months ago

A huge reason that no one can afford anything is because of wage suppresion

gnulinux9963• 10 months ago

If the US loses its massive lead

By US you mean corporate America? What if they maintain that massive lead on the backs of the US citizens?

The exploitation of the US worker needs to end, if the company does not have 100K to bring in global talent then that company cannot "massively lead" in any domain and the "talent" is neither global nor talented.

mc323• 10 months ago

Do you think those countries will be nice and invite us to be reverse "H1Bs" into their countries or will they keep the pie to themselves? If they think like you they'll invite the whole world talent pool into their countries.

intermerda7• 10 months ago

You're applying economics when the problem is fundamentally racial. Trump has exposed the dark underbelly of the US. The comments in this thread as well as elsewhere just show the fundamental lack of empathy - which I know is a made up word unless someone with the "right" political leanings was harmed.

Of course the visa is a privilege and there are tons of abuses associated with it. There are methodical ways of going about it and actually fixing the problem. Slapping a $100k fee with unclear language and no heads-up uproots while uprooting lives of so many people have lived in the country for years if not decades, maintained legal status, and paid taxes including Social Security and Medicare is "a smart move" according to the top comment.

But we all know what the real problem is. If majority of the H-1B visa holders had the right skin color, they would be welcome with open arms regardless of any abuse of the system. Just like how South African refugees are welcome while other those from the "wrong" kind of country are not.

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." ― Lyndon B. Johnson

xbar• 10 months ago

That is a real slippery slope you made from $1000 H1-B visas. It is nonsense.

cryptonector2• 10 months ago

This is very short term thinking

The EO expires in 12 months, so, yes, it's short-term.

Maybe in a year the administration will rethink things. Maybe sooner.

mikeryan2• 10 months ago

This is idiotic. We’re already pushing China and India into a partnership with Russia. The sheer volume of people in those countries mean “on average” more brilliant people than we do.

The US competitive advantage is built on us being a destination for the best and brightest. Between this and the crackdown foreign students at US Universities why would the anyone want to come here?

The misuse of H1Bs is a small problem compared to the value it provides.

calvinmorrison• 10 months ago

maybe they're occidentalists at heart?

rxyz• 10 months ago

The best and brightest are worth the extra $100k tax, no?

huevosabio3• 10 months ago

Strong disagree. This is a dumb move in that the US wins wins when people move to the US, especially young, skilled people.

There are big issues with the h1b, particularly how strongly tied to the employer the employee is and how few of these we give away. But this basically closes the door for hiring foreign talent to anyone but BigCo.

It is a sad shotgun shell on the right foot on a long streak of the US feet shooting it's way out of relevance.

fastball12• 10 months ago

Student visas still exist. O1 visas still exist. Other routes I can't remember off the top of my head exist. The door is not closed. Indeed, even H1B visas still exist, assuming that young talented person is worth $100k more than a US citizen.

the US wins wins when people move to the US, especially young, skilled people.

I personally lean towards this being true, but it is a claim that needs to be demonstrated comprehensively for your argument to hold water. It is not trivially true.

tnel775• 10 months ago

I genuinely don’t know: how many H1Bs were granted this year while we have read about numerous layoffs? Were those H1Bs truly necessary? Were they paid at or above market rates?

Hnrobert422• 10 months ago

My limited experience with H1B labor is not folks who are young nor particularly skilled. They are cheaper and faster to staff.

I'm by no means xenophobic. Bring in all the immigrants you want. But I can't agree that H1Bs are working as designed and pull in labor that doesn't otherwise already exist in the US.

AngryData4• 10 months ago

But if you want to attract young talented and skilled people into the US, I don't think H1B is a good way to do it. I would imagine is more likely to result in people leaving after gaining skills and experience and set up shop back home where the money they earned stretches farther. Many of them are forced to do so after their employer tosses them away so why would you come here with any different plan to start with? There is no clearly laid out path to come here on an H1B and guarantee you get to stay even if you do stellar work.

vasilipupkin11• 10 months ago

this is not smart. If you want to reform an H1B program, reform it. This is not a reform, this is a bizarre attempt to do what? stop companies from hiring foreigners? they will simply hire them in their foreign offices or offshore.

fastball12• 10 months ago

What is reform and what is not reform? This is a change, not a cancellation. That sounds like reform to me.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y73• 10 months ago

Unless they follow this up with some major excise tax, this is the obvious outcome of this, IMO.

freetime24• 10 months ago

I believe that the United States has long benefited from being able to attract talented people from other countries. They pay taxes, they participate in the economy, and they make the US more innovative and competitive in the world.

If there are abuses, then let’s fix them. But this is too heavy handed, and may have an impact on US competitiveness for generations to come.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v25• 10 months ago

<< But this is too heavy handed

Is it really? Given the current salaries for AI talent ( or whatever future most desired skill sets are ), 100k seems like a decent enough spot to do the following:

- keep the program limited to what it was intended to do ( bring in the best people in, keep US competitive -- on tech, not on low wages ) - keep populace in a state, where they don't see a reason for a leadership change

Unless, of course, that is not what the program is used for ( and anecdotally, that take does not seem that far fetched ).

So my overall response is: good. Frankly, this made Trump's election worth it.

jrockway• 10 months ago

Are H1B visas undercutting wages significantly? I haven't really looked since the zero interest rates era, but back then H1Bs were getting paid the same as everyone else. I got the impression that companies would like to hire citizens (for their own convenience), but there were more jobs than people.

The economy kind of sucks right now but it ain't H1B visa holders that are the problem.

bhouston6• 10 months ago

Please read the Bloomberg article I linked in my original post. It says that half of the H1-B visas are taken by staffing companies and they pay their staff significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing.

markmark• 10 months ago

Any addition of labor will push down wages just be increasing competition for jobs, even if they are all paid the same.

trgn• 10 months ago

you're not applying for .net analyst at midwest regional bank corp.

keeda5• 10 months ago

Crossposting from elsewhere:

Looking at it solely from a perspective of competition between labor glosses over the fact that insufficient labor is also bad because it keeps companies from growing and hiring more people.

So sure, while the fewer jobs that they can fill could have higher wages (not a given, because lack of labor can stunt or kill companies) there could be much fewer people employed overall, which is clearly bad overall.

I elaborated more here (along with a couple of relevant empirical studies about how H1B actually impacted employment and wages of native workers): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45308311

bhouston6• 10 months ago

Did you look at the Bloomberg article I linked in my original post? It says that half of the H1-B visas are taken by staffing companies and they pay their staff significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing.

throwaway892012• 10 months ago

This is actually smart.

The policy topic is irrelevant. This is not normal reform. Looking from the outside, the United States is clearly democratically backsliding and is imposing decree upon decree of emergency measures, without a functioning parliament, with a sand-in-wheels judiciary, along with an enormous cult of personality, without any empathy towards the victims of sudden policy changes and black-bag jobs.

comp_throw7• 10 months ago

The trivial way to fix that issue would've been to ORDER BY offered_salary DESC LIMIT $h1b_cap, not this.

bhouston6• 10 months ago

not a bad idea.

petesergeant• 10 months ago

That moves all H1Bs to software though, which I’m not sure is right.

bmitc2• 10 months ago

This is actually smart.

Do you personally know any H-1B visa holders? I can only assume that by your comment that you do not. The ones who play by the system have their entire livelihood and home held over their head while under an H-1B visa.

Punish the companies and staffing firms abusing the H-1B visas instead of creating a blanket, anti-immigration policy that will only bolster those abusing the H1-B visa, because those already abusing are the ones who have the funds to pay this fee. Companies who do things legitimately will not be able to easily absorb this fee.

I will lose friends and colleagues because of this imposed fee. This will kick out all the good people we actually want working in this country. This will further reduce good people wanting to come to this country.

mempko• 10 months ago

Exactly, it's not lime the visa holders get this 100k. The state does.

rinon2• 10 months ago

If we’d fix the green card caps so that Indian workers could get green cards we wouldn’t see as much abuse. The system is broken, so you’re suggesting break it further? The US benefits from a lot of smart immigrants, we should be making it EASIER, not harder, to attract and retain the best talent from all over the world. The United States is ceding its leadership here and we’re going to pay for that for generations.

thisisit• 10 months ago

As always with this administration using a cannon to kill a mosquito for the right reasons. And then people debating the reason rather than the cannon.

The logic from this administration and it’s supporters is opposite of Benjamin Franklin. Rather than thinking that it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer. They think it is better a hundred guilty persons be punished than one innocent person’s suffering. We have seen this from the South Korea detainees debacle and here too.

There is fraud in H1B system. People do take advantage of it. People do suffer from ghost jobs. But the question at the heart of the matter is what is the basis for a flat 100k fee? Because lots of numbers from this administration seem to be pulled out from thin air. There are reasons fines are set low in comparison to a company revenue but POTUS doesn’t seem to know.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y73• 10 months ago

It can be a cheaper source of human resources without direct outsourcing. This will just offshore jobs, not foster recruiting of citizens.

The intent is obvious, but the foresight into potential outcomes is shortsighted.

Labor is expensive, more competition will rise overseas, as it will become more expensive to operate.

It also crushes the opportunities of a gigantic number of individuals who are here today who had a plan in place to exist in this ecosystem. Additionally the institutions that supported them will also be hurt. Although, they might have been aware of the writing on the wall over the past year.

p0wn• 10 months ago

Love it.

Alex3917• 10 months ago

Seems like a reasonable policy. Given that the most talented tech workers, the ones the H1-B visas are designed to make it easier bring to the U.S., are getting $100M+ signing bonuses right now, a $100k/yr fee seems pretty trivial in comparison.

rocha• 10 months ago

The number of people at that compensation level is very very small, and they will probably go for a O1 type visa instead of a H1B.

onesociety2022• 10 months ago

That’s true in AI field. Even if you are an elite researcher in some other field like biosciences, physics you can’t demand those salaries. So people in those other fields are essentially screwed.

nextworddev6• 10 months ago

It’s not set in stone and can be reversed like tariffs no?

LPisGood12• 10 months ago

Do you mean reversed by future executive order answer that question is most likely, however, courts have shown a propensity to limit which executive orders can be undone by future presidents. For example, we saw this during Trump won with DACA.

breadwinner15• 10 months ago

If visa rules prove too onerous, companies pivot north to Vancouver, BC. [1]

Canada is rejoicing for the new boost to its economy.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2024/09/16/the-micros...

rr8083• 10 months ago

My mega corp employer has started an office in Mexico staffed with mostly contractors from India. Makes sense to have in the same timezone and much cheaper than our other low cost office in Texas that has mostly h1bs.

iancmceachern• 10 months ago

This is really smart. Plus you can truck freight across the border, you don't have to fly stuff. There are whole manufacturing cities setup on the border for these kind of setups.

rr8083• 10 months ago

These are IT workers doing programming and support for the US company.

yahoozoo3• 10 months ago

Offshoring will probably get tariffed next.

lisbbb5• 10 months ago

the phrase "shutting the barn door after all the horses have run off" comes immediately to mind. It's way too late to save tech in the USA, imho. It's too late for my nephew, who couldn't get a job after graduating with a CS degree in 2022 and who is not currently working in the tech field at all. And it's too late for all the lost wages for all the guys and gals my age whose incomes were artificially held down using the foreign competition, both on and offshore.

Before you downvote and curse me out, please understand that I have trained dozens of H1Bs throughout my career and helped them be better developers while knowing full well what the overall game looked like. I did it wholly without prejudice.

Deep down, I always knew we would hit that inflection point and we did. I don't think it is fixable at this point. Thus, it makes sense for politicians to finally consider addressing the abuse. I currently counsel young people to not become software engineers/developers. Aside from the lack of jobs, there is the awful ageism that strikes right when family is the most expensive (college aged kids). I'm very fortunate in that I saved like a madman and we inherited some wealth, which we INVESTED and didn't just blow on cars, houses, and vacations the way most dipshit Americans do these days. So when the inevitable career abbreviation took place, I was at least prepared. But I'm no less bitter, and that's the truth.

guy_5676• 10 months ago

Respectfully, at lot of what you say here runs contrary to my experience. US engineers are insanely well compensated, even relative to other developed countries. I'm a dual Australian/American citizen. I earned literally 3 times what I would have made in a big Australian city at my New York tech job.

I've always found it pretty easy to find a new job when I've needed one, even now there are an insane number of openings all over the US. The job market here is an order of magnitude larger then it was in Australia.

I don't doubt there is a deflationary effect on demand/wages due to h1b visas, but I don't connect at all with the catastrophic rhetoric I see in these threads. The United States still has some of the best opportunities in the world for people with tech skills

softwaredoug5• 10 months ago

IMO I think we need to fast-track H1Bs -> Green Card -> Citizens. Make skilled immigration easier, not harder.

Otherwise, if its too onerous, we're just training another countries workforce.

scheme2715• 10 months ago

This is already the case with Indians and possibly Chinese. The waiting time for h1b to green card for Indians is several decades right now and maybe 5-10 years for Chinese. Things might get better if the climate discourages future immigration from these countries but there's already a big backlog in place.

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

That's about to speed up when H1-Bs drop to the hundreds next year.

sniggler3• 10 months ago

H1B isn't skilled immigration. Or at least it wasn't before this change. Thanks Trump!

tenpies• 10 months ago

The Executive Order has now been published:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/rest...

If you don't want to read the pre-amble, you can skip straight to the second "Accordingly" to see the details.

jghn2• 10 months ago

People seem to be missing the part where DHS reserves the right to allow exceptions for any company they desire. Now they have another way to play favorites.

rokkamokka• 10 months ago

Another way to solicit donations, let's say

SpicyLemonZest12• 10 months ago

I and I hope a lot of other people will be demanding that the CEOs of all companies on that exception list go to prison in 2029.

aesbetic2• 10 months ago

Its a proclamation, not an executive order. This is important to keep in mind because Congress granted explicit statutory authorization to the President in the Immigration and Nationality Act 212(f) and is unlikely to be cut down by the courts for this reason:

"Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."

Also interestingly, it seems to only explicitly impose restrictions on entry into the US. But most visa holders are already in the country, and atleast according to this proclamation, they'd be unaffected.

l___l4• 10 months ago

"One software company was approved for over 5,000 H-1B workers in FY 2025; around the same time, it announced a series of layoffs totaling more than 15,000 employees. Another IT firm was approved for nearly 1,700 H-1B workers in FY 2025; it announced it was laying off 2,400 American workers in Oregon in July. A third company has reduced its workforce by approximately 27,000 American workers since 2022, while being approved for over 25,000 H-1B workers since FY 2022. A fourth company reportedly eliminated 1,000 jobs in February; it was approved for over 1,100 H-1B workers for FY 2025.

American IT workers have reported they were forced to train the foreign workers who were taking their jobs and to sign nondisclosure agreements about this indignity as a condition of receiving any form of severance. This suggests H-1B visas are not being used to fill occupational shortages or obtain highly skilled workers who are unavailable in the United States."

This speaks for itself.

hyperadvanced• 10 months ago

Yep. This abuse of H1-B is so obviously egregious.

wonderwonder7• 10 months ago

Lets Go!!! Raised the minimum salary to $150k. The 100k application fee is per person per year.

Meaning now companies can either hire an American new grad for 100k a year or pay 250k a year to import someone. It also still allows companies to bring over highly skilled foreign workers for which there are no American equivalents.

Really happy with the approach and I think it will be a massive boon for US tech and knowledge workers

Detrytus• 10 months ago

Nothing in the proclamation [1] says it is "per year". What it says is that every existing petition must be supplemented by $100k check, otherwise the employee won't be able to (re-)enter the US.

So, if you already got your visa issued for 3 years, and you didn't have any plans to travel abroad you are good until the end of your current visa term (which might be 2-3 years in future).

Also, apparently Department of State has started a pilot program that allows one to extend their H-1B visa without going abroad to have their passport stamped, so in that case you can get 3 more years in the US without the fee. The biggest limitation of course being that you're stuck in the US for the whole time, unable to leave.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/rest...

bluedevil2k• 10 months ago

All the comments are missing the bigger picture with this new policy - Trump is sending a message the tech companies will need to pay up (to him) to get this policy to go away.

mcny2• 10 months ago

My guess is this administration will also use this as a leverage in any negotiation with India?

wrt271Ja2• 10 months ago

Possible. Trump is in trouble with MAGA over Epstein etc., so he puts out this proposal for a headline and will revert it under certain circumstances.

I was already surprised that he implements one of his campaign promises.

justinator7• 10 months ago

They are, unless you have the ear of our current President God-King and can get an exception.

"The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States. "

https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1nlgzzu/trump_signs_p...

fred_is_fred5• 10 months ago

May I interest you in some Trump Coin?

fooey4• 10 months ago

it's effective nearly immediately too, and applies to all entries, not just applications

the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025

anyone on a visa who happens to currently out of the country has ~24 hours to get back without a $100,000 bill

if you're in the states, you won't be removed, but you cannot leave and re-enter without paying up

stephen_cagle2• 10 months ago

This straight 100k to the top is not a good way to implement this. It should be a percentage (say 50%, we can talk about what the number should actually be) of the total compensation that is being paid to the H1B. We should also just completely remove caps on H1B.

This allows companies that truly want extraordinary talent to pay a premium to acquire it with no red tape . It also makes it far less likely that they can significantly underpay foreign workers to work in the united states and undercut American employees (at a 50% surcharge, you would have to pay 2/3 the prevailing salary to break even (assuming all employees are the same)).

The 50% number is something I made up, I think we can have an honest discussion about what that number should realistically be (and it should probably be different for different industries). But my main point is it should simply be a percentage tax paid on top of all compensation for foreign employees. This is the correct way to balance domestic companies undercutting domestic labor, while allowing them to access genuinely extraordinary talent with no impedance.

wonderwonder7• 10 months ago

I disagree, why would they then not just hire the H1B at 50k and pay a 25K fee.

100k flat annual fee plus the new minimum 150k salary returns the H1B program to its original purpose of allowing US companies to hire truly exceptional foreign workers who have skills US workers do not. This allows companies to do just that and pay for it and at the same time protects the jobs and job prospects of US workers

stephen_cagle2• 10 months ago

I'll be honest that I read a different article on the same topic and did not know about the salary floor. So I wasn't thinking about that. I'm... mixed on that, but it does add a wrinkle to the equation.

I prefer a purely compensation relative approach because it let's the market decide what the actual salary for a software engineer is (with a percent of compensation premium for a foreigner and a 0 extra cost for a native). The market can dynamically adjust what a software engineer makes (not fixed price control) but it just cost more to hire foreign people.

In direct response to your first sentence, I think even foreign workers (who largely work harder and have more on the line than domestic workers) would question the wisdom of working for 50k a year as a software engineer in the US. They are actors in this system as well, and you can't just assume that you could offer 50k and get them to accept.

abeppu• 10 months ago

What's the basis for saying that the "original purpose" was to let companies hire "truly exceptional foreign workers"?

My understanding is that the H-1B was introduced by the 1990 immigration act, where the H-1B is supposed to be for "specialty occupations" other than nursing. But the same act introduced EB-1 and O-1 for people with "extraordinary ability", which sounds a lot closer to your "truly exceptional" understanding. I think maybe you're projecting a purpose onto the program that was never really there. The H-1B quota when it was introduced was 65k, so it's not like it started out being dramatically rarer than it is today.

famerica4• 10 months ago

new minimum 150k salary

Where did you get this from? It is not in the EO passed today: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/rest...

winter_blue• 10 months ago

purpose of allowing US companies to hire truly exceptional foreign workers

You're wrong on the purpose of it. The O-1 visa is for "exceptional" workers. The H-1B is for normal people.

thatfrenchguy3• 10 months ago

Or we could have a functioning smart government who lets say, Nvidia or Apple hire more folks and Infosys less instead of having a lottery? Folks on H1B pay federal income taxes

pwarner2• 10 months ago

There was a proposal for an auction. Highest prices get the visas.

sniggler3• 10 months ago

The entire point is to block middling unneeded H1Bs that are just taking middle-class American jobs, a high yearly salary bar does exactly that.

jayanmn• 10 months ago

Half of India’s talent will be in US next day after H1B cap is removed. I will be first one to try

none2585• 10 months ago

To be fair, these generally are used to skirt hiring Americans at market price. I've personally written a few explanations on how "no American could ever fill this role" for a very standard product engineering role.

archeantus3• 10 months ago

If you want a good job in tech, go look at Walmart’s job board in the coming weeks. They literally have thousands of Indians doing all kinds of jobs that could easily be done by Americans. I liked my time there, and there’s lots of great people, but it felt very clear that the system was being abused.

zahlman• 10 months ago

I have to say, when one thinks of jobs available at Walmart, tech doesn't exactly come to mind first.

ProllyInfamous3• 10 months ago

As of 2025, Wal-Mart's main corporate structure has ~2500 H-1B Visa Holders, $141k median, which allegedly no citizens can fulfill.

https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=wal-mart+associates+inc&jo...

Kerrick• 10 months ago

Walmart were early adopters of Node.js. Here's a 2012 article about it: https://web.archive.org/web/20221004193240/https://venturebe...

wara23arish• 10 months ago

homedepot too

in my team of 23 there were 2 americans

bayareapsycho2• 10 months ago

In my old org of 80ish, like half of them were from Telegana. All of management was from there. In total, at least 80% of the org was south asian. I guess it's just a coincidence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And I can promise you, at least half of them were completely useless. I mean, like so useless they couldn't even figure out how to use generics without 30 minutes of handholding

Also, WMT is not "in tech". Global tech is WITCH tier. The business side is run by the same type of MBA personality running Boeing

They're also forcing like half the company to move to Arkansas at the moment, so a bunch of people are trying to gtfo. I wouldn't advise anyone going there, startups are probably a better option

gradientsrneat• 10 months ago

Was this comment posted before on other threads or is it just me? Not saying it isn't relevant to the discussion, but it does seem to be worded the same.

archeantus3• 10 months ago

Nope. This is the original. Maybe someone else took my idea

gdsdfe• 10 months ago

I wonder how much china will benefit from this?

nsriv• 10 months ago

ITT: HN goes mask off

LPisGood12• 10 months ago

Do you honestly think the H-1B visa program is not predominantly used for hiring less expensive workers with fewer choices and negotiating leverage?

intermerda7• 10 months ago

The US has had its mask off since 2016-17. The tech industry somewhat more recently.

sergiotapia• 10 months ago

As an american engineer, I love this! Thank you President Trump!

"if H1Bs are supposed to be a means of obtaining labor not available domestically it's curious they're cheaper than domestic labor

an easy way to ensure that they aren't directly substituting for domestic labor would be to add a $100k surcharge per head"

OutOfHere2• 10 months ago

Don't love it yet. $100K surcharge per head for a 3 year visa is just $33K per year which is very absorable, and won't in itself affect visas much.

dsmark3• 10 months ago

No, it's 100k per year.

ungreased06752• 10 months ago

A great idea I didn’t see on that page is replacing the lottery. Instead, H1Bs would be given in order from highest salaries to lowest. (Actually until the quota is exhausted)

jiub• 10 months ago

The executive order says that companies will be exempted based on discretion of executive branch. So it won't apply to any company that kisses the ring.

nelox2• 10 months ago

The actual proclamation [1] is very narrow: a $100k surcharge on new H-1B petitions for workers outside the US. It’s a one-time hit tied to the petition. It does not say “annual.” It does not drag in renewals or transfers for people already in status.

Boundless is technically right that a $100k fee exists, but the piece glosses over the narrow scope and leans into speculation. It frames the fee like an ongoing tax on every H-1B, which just isn’t what the proclamation says. The difference matters: a one-time petition fee is brutal enough, but calling it annual misstates the policy and inflates the impact.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/rest...

nimih2• 10 months ago

You may want to read the section on enforcement:

Section 1. Restriction on Entry. (a) Pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), the entry into the United States of aliens as nonimmigrants to perform services in a specialty occupation under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000 — subject to the exceptions set forth in subsection (c) of this section. This restriction shall expire, absent extension, 12 months after the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025.

aesbetic2• 10 months ago

I don't see your point, the section describes a restriction on "entry into the United States". Most H1b visa holders are already in the US so this doesn't apply to them.

bolasanibk• 10 months ago

Any idea what is considered a petition? New h1b? Transfer? Extension?

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

AP is reporting the amount as an annual fee

https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-trump-immigration-8d3969...

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-mulls-a...

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

This was clarified today as not being correct.

Lutnick also repeatedly said on Friday that the fee would be annual for companies, while the White House official said Saturday that it’s a “one-time fee that applies only to the petition.”
In her Saturday afternoon post, Leavitt clarified that the payment would only be a “one-time fee” — not an annual one.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/20/donald-trump-h1b-vi...

mar0ux• 10 months ago

It's not just for new petitions, it's a requirement for _entry_ into the US. So, someone on an _existing_ H1, just traveling out of the country means you need to pay $100K to re-enter the US.

breadwinner15• 10 months ago

“I believe the shortage of U.S. talent, and the U.S.’s unwillingness to let companies bring in more global talent, has been a huge factor in why U.S. technology companies are increasing their Canadian footprint.”

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-ama...

nakamoto_damacy• 10 months ago

Naive question: couldn't companies here start sponsoring under O1 (which is still very low cost) instead of H1B?

felineflock2• 10 months ago

A.K.A., the Great Offshoring Incentive Act.

zerosizedweasle5• 10 months ago

Like tech companies aren't extremely vulnerable to whims of the US government and they'll just allow them to do that.

technocrat80803• 10 months ago

How are startups supposed to afford this? How are talented H-1B workers supposed to start companies? And no, the answer is not always an O-1. I know plenty of foreign founders contributing meaningfully to the US economy, now slapped with a 100k fee.

fooey4• 10 months ago

they're not, it's a moat

technocrat80803• 10 months ago

Great, let's punish early stage startups instead of rewarding the successful ones.

newfriend9• 10 months ago

Hire Americans.

N2yhWNXQN3k97• 10 months ago

Ever live somewhere that isn't a city, but has access to talent from a local university? No one is sticking around to be hired for $70k a year when they can make $120k a year in a city. Yet, there are plenty of hires due to a local migrant population, which commonly has generational support. This disrupts that. It hurts more than migrants. It hurts communities.

onetwothreego• 10 months ago

Love this for the VCs (Hi A16Z!) who went all in on Trump

softwaredoug5• 10 months ago

People are debating the merits here, and losing the big picture.

Congress makes laws. The executive implements them.

It could be a fantastic idea. But then make it a law. Give the president the power to do something like this.

Debating the merits without focusing on that first legitimizes this crazy psuedo law making Trump engages in and will enable him to be more arbitrary in other areas.

newfriend9• 10 months ago

Pen and a phone. This is not a phenomenon unique to Trump.

cmurf4• 10 months ago

Flatly illegal. Congress has not authorized imposing such a fee and the current statute would sets the fee based on cost recovery for administrative processing of the application.

zerosizedweasle5• 10 months ago

Big tech CEOs FAFOed. Didn't have to be this way.

zerosizedweasle5• 10 months ago

For people saying it will just lead to outsourcing, do you think they won't punish these companies severely if they do that? Come on, think...

laughing_man• 10 months ago

I keep hearing how reduction of the H-1(b) cap will keep singular talent from coming to the US. If you're genuinely hiring the best in the world for a critical role in a billion dollar project, $100k is a rounding error.

Judging from the reaction, it's almost like what the program really gets used for is to replace domestic workers with desperate, barely-qualified foreigners.

amir734jj• 10 months ago

what about postdocs and researcher at universities?

tamimio3• 10 months ago

We need something similar here in Canada, tech job market is abused and exploited by corps.

rediguanayum2• 10 months ago

Also announced today is the Trumpcard, a visa for super wealthy individuals. HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45308778 but is wrongly flagged. Politico is carrying the Trumpcard: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/19/trump-gold-card-vis... and says that it's $1 million for individuals and $2 million for corporations. The Trumpcard website is https://trumpcard.gov/ and is a terrible parody of itself.

rediguanayum2• 10 months ago

It's real. Here's the executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/the-...

instahire• 10 months ago

FYI Manifest (startup focused on immigration law) is hosting a free webinar by an experienced immigration attorney on Monday to answer questions related to this:

https://luma.com/xc2wbio7?from=embed

adebelov2• 10 months ago

yes! these guys are focused on o1/eb1 as H1B alternatives

adebelov2• 10 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/live/KcZEcDe1Hys?feature=shared

This was a live a few hours ago on H1B news.

garbawarb2• 10 months ago

I wonder if treaty-based non-immigrant-intent work visas like TN and E-3 will be next.

yalogin5• 10 months ago

Actually it’s much more sinister. It’s another way to force companies to kiss the ring. The government apparently can grant exceptions if they deem it’s in the good of the country.

The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.

forgotoldacc2• 10 months ago

I very much expect companies to make 10 million dollar "campaign donations" to avoid the visa processing fees. Impossible for small companies to afford, but if you have 1000+ H1Bs in your company, it's a bargain.

r_singh• 10 months ago

This is after increasing the repatriation tax that H1-B workers pay on the sum they’re sending home for Indians only in the One Big Beautiful bill so it’d be effectively taxing both ways

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg98erzl8eo

tonfa• 10 months ago

Isn't that tax deductible from income tax? So for a typical H1-B it doesn't really matter (unless they remit more than their taxable income).

mkoubaa• 10 months ago

This is very reassuring for those in the right industries. For non-strategic things like b2b SaaS, it's very likely to be a full purge

Animats4• 10 months ago

The $100,000 fee isn't the real route to a visa. See the proclamation text: [1]

(c) The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.

"At the Secretary's discretion" means "get your bribes ready". Lobbyists are probably already working the phones on this.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/rest...

dluan• 10 months ago

This is the reality, combined with the fact that this was pretty much the status quo already. O-1 visas were also a commonly targeted with lawmaker bribes. This just codifies what was already happening and screws over the smaller companies that don't have the resources, networks, guanxi, etc to play the game.

justanotherjoe• 10 months ago

Judging from reason events, this is just another scourge he can (and will) use against democratic cities or entities

telchior• 10 months ago

Every change this admin implements needs this examination first. Everyone is in here having earnest discussions about policy pros and cons, but it ain't that country anymore.

The companies the admin favors are being given backdoors for every policy that's presented, and the way to become favored is to present bribes, whether they come in the form of gold plaques, lawsuit settlements, crypto investments, or stock market collusion.

N2yhWNXQN3k97• 10 months ago

whether they come in the form of gold plaques, lawsuit settlements, crypto investments, or stock market collusion.

You forgot monopolization, power consolidation, etc

elAhmo3• 10 months ago

Well said! This is not a policy, for a policy you need to think about it, analyse effects and stick to it.

We know how decisions are made in this admin, and how shortlived they can be.

Why would someone pay 100k knowing tomorrow this might disappear?

avs7332• 10 months ago

Quite a while back the exponent podcast did an episode that has stuck with me for a long time about what they called “principal stacks” as an analogue to protocol stacks.

The idea that I left with was to look at the hierarchy of principles not just the set of or claimed principles.

At this point it seems as if the top of the principal stack for those in power isn’t even more power anymore, it’s just grift.

nextworddev6• 10 months ago

So you are saying this is bullish for QQQ

mrtksn2• 10 months ago

I see, they're just redirecting the firehose.

elktown• 10 months ago

This thread is a poignant example of why I think tech folks might be one of the most gullible crowds out there - despite being perceived as smart. It's like a perfect storm of attributes and incentives. So here we are, completely preoccupied with picking apart details and effects of visa programs for a blatantly obvious kiss-the-ring initiative that couldn't care less about that.

redserk• 10 months ago

The old “book smart vs street smart” rings loudly.

I completely disagree with much of what the Trump Administration is pushing, but they seemed to execute on the “street smarts” while policy wonks and others who want to analyze are preoccupied discussing policy.

Frankly it’s embarrassing how gullible and easily tricked much of the intellectual class is.

Animats4• 10 months ago

Top 6 H-1B visa companies:

    Amazon      14,365
    Tata         5,505 (Tata is an outsourcing company/body shop)
    Microsoft    5,189
    Meta         5,123
    Apple        4,202
    Google       4,181

Watch for activity favoring Trump from those companies.

nashashmi• 10 months ago

Why is DHS getting involved? It should be the sec of state. They issue visas. Or have things changed?

btbuildem• 10 months ago

Everyone is discussing the merits and downsides of this, but I'm yet to see the obvious be pointed out: it's extortion.

It's interesting to read all the analysis in the comments, but I think people are giving far too much credit to the admin in terms of having considered the impacts, the effects, some kind of desired direction for things to move, etc.

It's really much simpler than that: the mob boss has to get a cut of the action. One clue is the "fee" being annual, not one-time. Another tell is that there are no details as to what the collected money will go towards.

apwell235• 10 months ago

so when you pay money to govt ( taxes ect) they tell you what exactly thats going towards?

What kind of BS is this :)

technocrat80803• 10 months ago

A 100k fee is well within the territory of killing job prospects for skilled foreign students graduating from US universities.

What percentage of the AI labs are staffed by either foreign workers or second/third generation immigrants? Look at the composition of high achieving high school students- almost certainly of Asian or Indian descent, certainly many belonging to families of recent immigrants. The pipeline this EO disrupts is immense.

rvz• 10 months ago

Let me guess...

A 90 day pause is next if the markets crash over this next week.

Either way, this is the sub definition of "AGI". Time for the "AI Agents" to prove their worth as advertised and hyped.

Or else...

kappi2• 10 months ago

CS new grads from Top10 are finding it tough to get jobs. There is lot of supply of smart CS grads within US. No need to hire H1Bs in the current economic situation which is different from late 90s when H1B program started.

kappi2• 10 months ago

As authorized by federal law, the department will conduct investigations of employers through Project Firewall to maximize H-1B program compliance. To achieve this goal, the Secretary of Labor will personally certify the initiation of investigations for the first time in the department’s history. This historic action leverages existing authority granted to the Secretary if reasonable cause exists that an H-1B employer not in compliance.

Secretary-certified investigations, as well as other H-1B-related investigations, are important tools the department will use in Project Firewall to hold employers accountable and protect the rights of American workers. Violations may result in the collection of back wages owed to affected workers, the assessment of civil money penalties, and/or debarment from future use of the H-1B program for a prescribed period of time.

idiotsecant• 10 months ago

None of us are talking about the important part of this - this new fee can be waived at will by the Secretary of homeland security entirely at their discretion. This isn't about H1b at all, it's about punishing political enemies and rewarding allies. It's one more little toehold of the mafia state.

nomilk• 10 months ago

US-based companies that depend on H-1Bs may:

- stomach the cost increase,

- reduce the number of H-1Bs they hire,

- move (the company) out of the US (i.e. to less imposing jurisdictions).

If companies choose the latter, the irony is the resulting reduction in US tax revenue from companies moving out could outweigh the gains in revenue from the $100k H-1B tax, thus resulting in lower US government tax revenues due to the change.

newfriend9• 10 months ago

You missed one:

Hire Americans.

nickpsecurity• 10 months ago

" Summary Companies

    Visas are used principally by tech sector
    Over 70% of beneficiaries of H-1B visas enter US from India
    Latest move in Trump's broader immigration crackdown

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Friday it would ask companies to pay $100,000 per year for H-1B worker visas, potentially dealing a big blow to the technology sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China. Since taking office in January, Trump has kicked off a wide-ranging immigration crackdown, including moves to limit some forms of legal immigration. The step to reshape the H-1B visa program represents his administration's most high-profile effort yet to rework temporary employment visas.

Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here. "If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs," U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said."

Absolutely. I've seen so many H1-B's doing run of the mill IT work. In the past, some job adds said "H1-B preferred." That's on top of all the Indian outsourcing.

It looks like Trump is one again making it expensive to use a foreign asset to encourage use or development of local assets. If they're truly talented and rare, then the $100,000 will be worth paying. I could see the A.I. field doing that since they're already doing it. Many will consider hiring or training Americans.

HardCodedBias3• 10 months ago

Note that the fee is triggered by entry.

It sounds like F1 and TN visa holders will be able to acquire H1B visas without triggering the fee (but no international travel afterwards or the fee would be triggered).

I suspect that the o1 and l1 visas will get more use if this actually gets enforced.

I also suspect that the large tech companies don't overly mind since they all have very active offshoring programs.

throwawaydbb• 10 months ago

Except that I (and I believe it will apply to many folks similar to myself) working for US company branches located in the EU for a decade, on the staff/EM positions, with education to qualify also for O1 - will not put my life and my family’s life to be the subject of sudden immigration changes.

What’s stopping them from doing the same for L1/O1 folks and locking them in with days’ notice?

Few of my US colleagues that I know are now abroad, and I cannot fathom how they took the news.

LastTrain• 10 months ago

What makes this particular ill conceived policy bomb so special that it gets to stay on the front page?

gsky• 10 months ago

H1B should be banned completely as Americans wanted. Which also helps other countries to build their own big tech.

IncreasePosts• 10 months ago

The rest of the headline is "in likely blow to tech", but I disagree. $100k when you're pimping some poor soul out for $40k/yr is too much. But when you're already paying them $500k+? Cost of doing business.

mikewarot• 10 months ago

It's obvious to me that the problem with H-1B visas is the same as that of undocumented workers, in that we've created a second class of people who are trapped in a system seemingly created specifically to exploit them, while simultaneously making things worse for the rest of us.

It's my opinion that anyone already here should have a path towards citizenship, or legal permanent residence. The exploitation of people needs to end, and the dignity of everyone in this country should be respected.

Of course we need to have rules, and borders that are secure. It's unreasonable to want to abolish them or close them completely.

synergy20• 10 months ago

75% or more h1b went to one country for 20+ years even though another large country had way more students here in the past, who had less than 8% h1b. h1b is totally abused illegally for too long, they should be charged.

dsmark3• 10 months ago

Hallelujah!

hedayet• 10 months ago

I have seen an endless stream of unqualified people scamming and abusing H-1B, O-1, EB-1, and EB-2 programs — you name it. I can understand why the average American might come to resent these programs.

On the other hand, I know many highly talented immigrants in the USA whose contributions to society would be missed if they just couldn’t focus entirely on their work - let alone if they were kept out of the country altogether.

My point: They have identified the right problem (H-1B abuse), but the proposed fix is too drastic and undermines sustainable trust between immigrants and the country. I’d like to be proven wrong, though.

kristopolous2• 10 months ago

Defund universities, kick out high skilled foreigners... This guy's doing everything in his power to turn the US into a bigoted impoverished backwater wasteland

matrix2596• 10 months ago

people dont realize how lucky US citizens have it just by luck of being born in US

senordevnyc• 10 months ago

Feels like our luck is running out

nikkwong4• 10 months ago

I think one important distinction that I haven’t seen mentioned here much is that there is a big difference between handing out h1bs to cognizant employees vs students who did masters programs in the US and are working as direct hires in faang companies. In the latter case, these workers have already invested tens if not hundreds of thousands into the US as well as many years before even making a dime. This cohort is much more incentivized to stay in the US and contribute over the long term. They are also not ‘abusing’ the h1b program at all, because they are getting paid the exact wages as their US counterparts, unlike those at BigTechConsulting.

Smarter policy would be to looking into targeting the actual exploitation, where it actually exists (if it’s deemed that the externalities are truly negative), like the outsourcing to cognizant. Of course, we are living under the rule of probably the most inept president in any of our lifetimes; so he doesn’t act methodically, only reflexively to once again reduce US competitiveness over the long term.

nikkwong4• 10 months ago

And not to belabor this point, but he’s doing such one-dimensional math here by thinking of the immigration scenario as zero sum. Trump has clearly lost the plot. What he is failing to consider is that the US is in a long term ideological war with our biggest enemy China, and our best hand in this game is stealing their best and brightest to live in the west and have them to learn and love western values; which they will use to influence their friends, families, and social media circles back at home.

I’ve seen this happen with just about every friend of mine who has immigrated from China to the US and the effect that it has on their immediate network carries significant weight at shifting their perspective. Xi is not popular at home, and the west should be doing what it can to increase domestic Chinese instability in the same way they’re doing to us (very successfully). Rather, he is hell bent on unifying them to hate America.

There’s an ideological war happening and our president is not only too stupid to play ball but he’s also interested in giving up the hand of cards we already have. He is a true and utter moron and it’s hard to understate my level of disgust.

s1artibartfast2• 10 months ago

If H1B numbers stay the same, but more are going to 300k/yr jobs instead of 60k/yr jobs, then that is a win for brain draining the rest of the world.

nextworddev6• 10 months ago

This prices startups out of hiring visa holders

pabs3• 10 months ago

Will they be targeting outsourcing next?

bawana• 10 months ago

Wow. Tech companies must b pissed. After donating millions (even 24k gold apple totems!) the orange man turns around and punches them in the pocket book! At least he didnt put a tax on options vesting

seydor• 10 months ago

I would assume tech companies can easily launch research centers in India, no?

procaryote2• 10 months ago

As a european I welcome this change and hope european countries are able to respond by lowering the barriers for talented people to come here.

Come to europe! The taxes are higher, and you have to pick your country wisely depending on what your goals are, but the politics are nicer and you often get healthcare

tho2i3423o423423• 10 months ago

The issue is race, not immigration, as it was with the Jews pre-WW2. Europe would probably be even worse than the US in the long run, given that nativism would run even stronger.

The issues are philosophical ultimately, and the theorists of Liberalism simply haven't stepped up to the challenge.

procaryote2• 10 months ago

I have a hard time parsing what you're trying to say

kittikitti• 10 months ago

https://www.epi.org/blog/disney-h1b-scandal-in-spotlight-mee...

Companies like Disney, too, have committed abuses with the H1B. It's not just big tech, it's widespread across the United States. I think Americans privileged with different Visa or residency status will benefit.

hvb2• 10 months ago

Is the white house planning to do this for all the temporary visas in hospitality too?

I know a few companies that were relying on those heavily and it sure would help if those jobs went to Americans.

https://www.npr.org/2017/07/20/538387033/trumps-private-club...

MagicMoonlight• 10 months ago

The US has 340m people. There is absolutely no way they need people from other countries to fill their entry-level roles.

aramaswa• 10 months ago

Check out this Q&A session hosted by Manifest’s principal immigration attorney happening on Monday! Incredible resource to help prepare https://luma.com/xc2wbio7?from=embed

johanyc9• 10 months ago

The keyword to search for is prevailing wage. https://flag.dol.gov/programs/prevailingwages is apparently under maintenance Also it's mot just a number, it depends on the jobs location, type and level.

brainless• 10 months ago

This may boost remote jobs.

I have worked for many US based startups, all remotely. Timezone difference (I am in India) is a big issue unless the company is very well structured to work asynchronously.

Companies hiring top talent may still hire with a $100K additional charge but even at $250K - 400K salaries, this is a lot of additional cost.

dpacmittal• 10 months ago

That's where the HIRE act comes in.

chvid• 10 months ago

Not much empathy in this thread being given towards the thousands of H-1B workers whose lifes will be upended by this.

hshshshshsh• 10 months ago

Great news as Indian living outside US. More FAANG hiring in EU and India. More pay. Thanks Trump. Even plus don't have to relocate to US and can avoid this lunies.

qaq• 10 months ago

Hard to say what net effect would be in my industry most positions are shifted to offices in countries other than US as is.

JCM9• 10 months ago

Companies have abused the program. At the top end it’s an excellent program, and then there’s the rest where companies are making fake claims that they can’t hire Americans and need to import folks. This is what the administration is cracking down on. The idea isn’t crazy IMHO. If you want to import someone vs hiring and training an American then pay an extra $100k. If the skill is truly needed and rare companies will do that. If it’s not, then pay up.

Some saying companies will just offshore the roles but I doubt it. That was always much cheaper… if it was just about cost they would have done that already.

nly2• 10 months ago

Looks like a great opportunity for other nations to hoover these brains up on the cheap

Manfred• 10 months ago

You don't have to live in a country to be hired as a contractor by a company. The only difference is that the contractor will pay taxes in the country of residence, so ultimately it's a bad deal for the US.

password543214• 10 months ago

Good maybe we can start ending the catch 22 system where Indians are claiming they have experience back home and then taking jobs from citizens who can't get their first job because they don't have experience while competing against a >1 billion population. The graduate market is a mess.

htilford• 10 months ago

Interviews are a thing, no one is hiring people based on self reported claims

password543214• 10 months ago

No one ever lies

i_am_a_peasant• 10 months ago

tbf the only thing the US has got going for it is the english language. germany is a perfectly fine place to live and work. it’s not like if you join raytheon you’ll be playing with rockets all day. you’ll be working in a very narrow area of one isolated subsystem without being allowed to see the big picture.

You’ll probably have a 2 hour commute too, and in your free time mostly live in your car because only the big cities have any degree of walkability.

What good is more disposable income if i’m too afraid to walk alone at night.

yahoozoo3• 10 months ago

What does this mean for corporate Diwali celebrations?

thelastgallon2• 10 months ago

I wonder if there will be a new fee on H4 visa as well? They weren't allowed to work before.

AbstractH242• 10 months ago

In 2025, with remote work and globally distributed teams common, what's the incentive to bring talent to the US anymore? To even pay the current price for H1B visas.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 10 months ago

Can I be pro-immigration and anti-H-1B?

I want people to come here legally, put down roots, and buy into our way of life. I love to see patriotic first gen immigrants. I don't want our country used as a piggy bank just because we happen to have good paying jobs right now.

christkv2• 10 months ago

In 2024 These where the top 10 h1b visa companies.

Amazon Com Services LLC- 10,044 H1-B visa holders Tata Consultancy Services LLC- 5,505 Microsoft Corporation- 5,189 Meta Platforms- 5123 Apple Inc- 4,202 Google LLC - 4,181 Cognizant Technology Solution - 2,493 JP Morgan Chase and Co - 2,440 Walmart Associates Inc - 2,390 Deloitte Consulting LLP - 2353

I'm going to speculate that this little is lost by hardening the h1b. The 100 000 a year is not going to stop someone from hiring truly "exceptional" talent.

socrateswasone• 10 months ago

This is great. I have my doubts about Trump but I have to admit, he is keeping his promises. I thought there was no way he would do something like this with the tech oligarchs swarming around him, but it seems they are firmly under his thumb. Sometimes you just need a Caesar.

nirav72• 10 months ago

I can't see this lasting. This could go two ways - either large organizations pay up in some other ways to this administration or this is used as a leverage to force India to come to the table. Also that India receives $36 billion in remittances from overseas Indian workers. The current ruling Party in India is going to feel some pressure from its citizens over that alone.

fooker7• 10 months ago

India is so happy about this change that the only thing they have publicly complained about is the potential for family disruption.

$36 billion

One new big tech office in India will generate more than this, and all the tech companies are in a hiring spree in India to do this right now.

shakes_mcjunkie2• 10 months ago

Anyone who thinks this is pro-labor in any way or going to increase American salaries needs to spend some serious time thinking about who is implementing this policy.

amai• 10 months ago

Tariffs on workers. What could go wrong?

dagaci• 10 months ago

I hear American's have to get in debt for over 100k for the same education thats almost free in so many places, so it might be a kind of balancing things..

digianarchist8• 10 months ago

Employers aren't allowed to pass visa fees straight off to an employee.

8note5• 10 months ago

something i havent seen commented on this time around for h1bs is that they arent just for tech workers, and this change is restricting the hiring of say, rural librarians because they arent gonna be able to afford the 100k price tag.

ozozozd3• 10 months ago

Given the Homeland Security Secretary’s power to make exceptions, I get the sense that FAANG will pay in various currencies such as dollars, fealty and bribes/favors to the administration, get their exceptions and unlimited H1Bs, truly achieving the goal of paying less than market wages, pushing all the wages down.

rramadass6• 10 months ago

Discussion on The H-1B Visa Program and Its Impact on the U.S. Economy here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45309740

therealrealpops• 10 months ago

Everyone knows that most H1Bs in the US are not exceptional or more qualified than Americans. The ones that are, are the exceptions not the case. Most H1Bs actually have pretty high paying jobs in their countries compared to salaries there. They just want more and use it as a loop hole to get in the US.

KETpXDDzR• 10 months ago

India: 71% of H-1B approvals

China: 11.7% of H-1B approvals

All other nationalities: 17.3% combined

Src: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/22/h-1b-fee-hike-whos-...

Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

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