President To Impose $100,000 Fee For H-1B Worker Visas, White House Says (reuters.com) 231
U.S. President Donald Trump plans to impose a new $100,000 application fee for H-1B worker visas, a White House official said, potentially dealing a big blow to the technology sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China. From a report: As part of his broader immigration crackdown, the Republican president was expected to sign a proclamation as early as Friday restricting entry under the H-1B visa program unless the application fee is paid, the official said.
The H-1B program has become critical for technology and staffing companies who rely on foreign workers to fill a variety of technical roles. Amazon had over 10,000 H-1B visas approved in the first half of 2025, while Microsoft and Meta had over 5,000 H-1B visa approvals each, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Roughly two-thirds of jobs secured through the visa program are computer-related, according to U.S. government figures, but employers also use the visa to bring in engineers, educators and healthcare workers.
The H-1B program has become critical for technology and staffing companies who rely on foreign workers to fill a variety of technical roles. Amazon had over 10,000 H-1B visas approved in the first half of 2025, while Microsoft and Meta had over 5,000 H-1B visa approvals each, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Roughly two-thirds of jobs secured through the visa program are computer-related, according to U.S. government figures, but employers also use the visa to bring in engineers, educators and healthcare workers.
This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Insightful)
You jest. On the other hand, it'll stop those insane return-to-office mandates though, as all new development will be remote.
H1B and employment needs (Score:3)
The entire H1B program is to bring in workers for specialty occupations where there is no US citizen to be found.
The employer is required to "search" for a capable US worker for the position before a H1B visa can be granted.
From that perspective, since there is a critical shortage of US workers for the job, one approach would be to put a 100% federal salary tax paid by the company for the H1B visa to give them an economic incentive to search harder and train up a US worker instead of H1B.
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a move in the right direction, but over several years it's still probably a "savings".
And because we live in a capitalist dystopia, the imported workers will probably just wind up taking the equivalent pay cut instead of fewer visas.
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Insightful)
the imported workers will probably just wind up taking the equivalent pay cut instead of fewer visas.
Considering that H1-B requires paying the equivalent salary or local prevailing wage for the work, no they will not without that requirement being lifted, which it will not be.
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:3)
And you actually believe that is what they are paid?
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:3)
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>I've always wondered if it's true or not that the mostly Indian workforce in US is paid way below.
I came in on an L1 for a temp assignment. I was paid competitively. I did bring specific skills that were unavailable otherwise.
25 years later I'm still here. VP of engineering in a tech company and doing ok.
I'm not Indian though, although I work with many. Skills tend to count over origin in my field.
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always wondered if it's true or not that the mostly Indian workforce in US is paid way below.
It may depend on the type of position. Some Indians graduated from an IIT and then from a top US school with a PhD. They get paid way more than $100k/year. They do possess harder to find skills, and those are the types of immigrants that the H1B should be targeting. A $100k increase in costs for these workers is substantial but far less than 50%.
However, many Indians and non-Indians did not graduate from top schools in their country or the US. Many of these people are hired for their low cost. A $100k increase in their cost would likely be more than 50% of the current costs.
The key to setting an effective fee is to price it to distinguish between these two types.
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't you ask them? Discussing salary with your coworkers is a protected right (your boss cannot fire you) under the labor code for now.
Being open about salary is the only way you'll discover pay discrepancy. People think they don't want to share because they feel they may be overpaid and discussing will result in a pay cut, but that's also a good way to get a constructive dismissal.
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And because we live in a capitalist dystopia, the imported workers will probably just wind up taking the equivalent pay cut instead of fewer visas.
Those 100k$ may become "H1-B loans, to be reimbursed by the employee to the employer" similar to how student loans in the US "work".
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:4, Insightful)
Those 100k$ may become "H1-B loans, to be reimbursed by the employee
How would that work? These are employees, and the application fee is the employer's liability to the government. An Employer generally cannot make an employee assume expenses that are for the employer's benefit. Even those expenses an employer can make the employee pay cannot exceed their wages such that an employee is paid below minimum wage. Any kind of attempt to extract the costs of the fee out of the employee would be fraud.
Re:This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been saying for decades now that the F-1 (student) visa should be able to convert to a resident visa upon graduation.
The whole idea of it not being a resident visa was a cold war notion that after graduating, the international student would return to their country and spread the gospel of how wonderful the United States was, and how their local country needed to oppose the Soviets. I doubt that ever really happened.
Today, weâ(TM)re just training people and then at best turning them into indentured servants for a few oligarchs, or even worse (and now the policy of the Trump administration), throwing them out so theyâ(TM)ll build up some other competing country, while weakening our own.
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The cool kids doing serious research do the Education excluded H1B (which has no cap.)
And of course if you are actually good, you can do O-1A.
I've always been a fan of the whole "just allow everyone with a degree" visa. That's what we do here (+ job sponsorship, but everyone needs a job, so
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, those with degrees are not above state-sponsored espionage. Offering carte blanche visas to people for having a degree is how your geopolitical enemies exfiltrate data.
Re:This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:4, Informative)
These guys eventually become employers in our economy and pay a lot of tax.
A H-1B is not the path to that as far as I know. The H-1B lasts for 3 years and can be extended 3 more. After that 6 years the H-1B cannot be renewed, and they're forced back to their own country for a minimum of 1 year anyway.
The only way to stay in the US and become an employer is to get a greencard instead of a H-1B in the first place; or to apply for a permanent residency to change from a H1B to a resident based on major eligibility criteria. The 100K fee is probably not very much for the people who would actually meet that eligibility criteria, and you would still be willing to deal with the fee for the opportunity.
What this will do, is that newly graduated STEM masters and PhD will go back to their home country and we lose out on top talents.
You are assuming newly graduated STEM masters are top talents. I am not sure that has been evidenced. Top talents are people who have demonstrated abilities and expertise in their fields. They don't put you at the top of anything after graduating from a few years' worth of coursework. There is some book knowledge and background you should have to succeed in an engineering field, but skills are acquired on the job, and a classroom is only the starting point.
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or to apply for a permanent residency to change from a H1B to a resident based on major eligibility criteria
this is the path attempted by all who i've known.
chatGPT sez:
Based on DOL data and employer disclosure, roughly half to twothirds of H1B workers in major tech firms eventually start the green card process at some point in their stay.
(and seems reasonable after some poking at it)
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oh and another estimated 10%-20% get married to us citizens and go that route.
My experience is they just shuffled them to Canada (Score:3)
Re:This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Informative)
There are much better ways to deal with the abuses. What this will do, is that newly graduated STEM masters and PhD will go back to their home country and we lose out on top talents. These guys eventually become employers in our economy and pay a lot of tax.
There really isn't a better way to deal with the abuses. Here's some personal experience.
Fortune 500 company - bottom half of that group is all I will say about them - laid me and some others off in a big layoff a few years ago. Yeah, they got rid of a few H1-Bs in the layoffs, but the vast overwhelming majority of layoffs were white American males over 40 years old, who just happened to be making good money. In my department, only Americans got laid off and not a single H1-B was impacted by the layoffs. I've been told that this is supposedly "illegal", but it's exactly what happened. They kept the H1-Bs because they make less money and they can't leave unless they want to return to India.
Same company, but a few months before I was laid off, a college student I barely know (friend of a friend kind of thing) was offered an internship by the company. I told the student that I knew his manager and I thought highly of her so I figured working there would be OK. Probably didn't hurt that this manager was Indian as was the student. He told me his dream was to work on stuff that gets patented. I told him that in our state we did not work on that kind of thing, but we had an R&D office in another state that did. I told him that he'd never get to work on stuff that gets patented here but if he got his foot in the door with the internship, maybe he could eventually get there because the company liked to hire its interns. He did indeed get a job offer after the internship, which he accepted, making him an H1-B. I have some limited contact with him and he's still there. And he has no plans to ever transfer out of state to the R&D org and work on patented stuff. All it took to make him completely give up on his dreams was an H1-B paycheck.
Final story about the same company. You might remember in Trump's first term he put limitations on H1-Bs in IT because of abuses. My company wrote a job description up for a job they wanted to fill during those restrictions. I saw it early one morning when I was getting coffee as it was on a bulletin board. The job was in another state and the requirements were super specific and honestly a whole lot of bs like the job required a master's degree and experience doing chip design. My guess is that if an American with the very specific skills somehow applied for the job, they'd just offer the H1-B salary and expect the American to say no. So the job stays open for I guess maybe half a year or more and finally they get permission to hire a specific guy for the job from India. Know what he does? He writes code in Java for them. That chip design and master's degree "requirement' stuff was bs to try to make sure only he could match those "requirements". He was the only employee our org in the company hired for an entire year. I mean, if you can't hire H1-Bs, they simply weren't interested in hiring anybody.
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Re:This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:4, Insightful)
100% there were abuses in the past. But this has been cracked down and the bodyshops account for a pretty small % of the H1-B hires.
Bloomberg says it's at least half bodyshops in the 2020s (haven't checked their methodology)
https://economictimes.indiatim... [indiatimes.com]
Re:This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:4, Interesting)
Fortune 500 company - bottom half of that group is all I will say about them - laid me and some others off in a big layoff a few years ago. Yeah, they got rid of a few H1-Bs in the layoffs, but the vast overwhelming majority of layoffs were white American males over 40 years old, who just happened to be making good money. In my department, only Americans got laid off and not a single H1-B was impacted by the layoffs. I've been told that this is supposedly "illegal", but it's exactly what happened. They kept the H1-Bs because they make less money and they can't leave unless they want to return to India.
I had the exact opposite experience. The Fortune 500 company I worked at had layoffs, and shortly afterward the government started inquiring why H1-B workers weren't let go. All H1-B applications were rejected for the next 2 years and those people either found new sponsors or moved back to their country of origin.
IMHO the best way to avoid H1-B abuse is to put a floor on the salary across the board, and verify it through the IRS.
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What this will do, is that newly graduated STEM masters and PhD will go back to their home country and we lose out on top talents.
If by "will go back" you mean "will be deported". If they're even allowed to stay long enough to graduate...
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I've seen deported students. didn't finish their degree. I've seen self deportation too.
Why you would stay in the USA as soon as you had a chance to leave..after the degree? You are not treated well and somebody you upset can accuse you of anything and you are deported. But we'll fix that as our already declining education system gets further harmed by Trump over the next 3+ years. It is already so poor that many students don't see hardly any difference between online learning and in person learning.
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Because even if you're deported you already made a TON of money, especially if you come from India.
A PhD in america can easily get 100K+ a year, in India? Good fucking luck.
No other country on earth has that level of salaries. So yes, it's a very safe bet. If you do well, you stay in america and become a high income person. If you are unlucky, you get deported and already made more money that you would have made if you left for your home country.
Money not Everything (Score:3)
A PhD in america can easily get 100K+ a year
As someone with a PhD, although I arrived in the US with it, I left as soon as it was reasonable to do so and that was in the early 2000's. What I found interesting was that when I arrived most of the discussion amongst my fellow European immigrants was jobs in the US but within a few years it changed very much looking at jobs in Canada, Europe and elsewhere - far fewer were considering staying in the US and I suspect that number has now cratered given that I'm a member of an international collaboration wh
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:2)
I was under the impression that the vast majority of H-1B visa holders went to schools and became "experts" in their home country, then came to America on an J-1B visa.
How does a fresh out of college worker qualify for an H-1B visa?
Do we really have "tens of thousands" of STEM graduates each year here in student visas? Really?
If they can't get jobs in the U.S. after graduation, will they still want to attend a U.S. university? Perhaps they will find a more affordable school to attend elsewhere?
Fewer foreign
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I was under the impression that the vast majority of H-1B visa holders went to schools and became "experts" in their home country, then came to America on an J-1B visa.
How does a fresh out of college worker qualify for an H-1B visa?
What's you may be thinking of is more the O-1 "genius" visas... which don't really require a genius but a published PhD level.
H-1Bs are mixed. many are definitely foreign trained, but also many start out as foreign students in US universities. I haven't checked the split ,but most foreign STEM graduates of us BS or MS programs certainly try to get H-1B jobs and many succeed.
For school they're here on F1 visa and automatically get 1 year of work permission after graduation under OPT (Optional Practical
Honestly there's not a lot those guys can do (Score:2)
What you got instead is some folks who were pretty good at math and ended up in routine coding jobs.
Buddy of mine who never graduated college but is intelligent but unfortunate landed a coding job for about 6 months before getting replaced by an h1b. He'd been doing the job just fine for the pay and th
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You're looking at what a subset of graduates will be doing next semester, but building a skilled workforce takes a generation.
The proposed rules wouldn't kick out existing foreign workers, merely restrict the rate the more are brought in. (i.e., a sensible immigration policy, in sharp contrast to the ICE concentration-camp thing.)
You have to start somewhere, and this is the right way: Gradually phasing more native workers into these roles. I'm not sure what else you expect; maybe there's a button somewhere
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Computer Science is a flawed degree but you are way off! It was a math degree initially and it was theory bound. It became corrupted into software engineering. It sounds better so the name sticks but it is more of a software engineering degree today. It really should be a math degree that has nothing from industry in it. Let them research new algorithms and have very few job prospects. If you want software engineers, then make a proper engineering degree! Stop this widespread false advertising!
Even so, in
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Actually, CS is derived from both math and EE, at least in places that do it well. Which are few, agreed. Also, for a proper CS program, coding is a skill you need, but not one that gains you much. Just as plain writing and reading is a skill if you study, say, history or languages.
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:2)
If you can fill a 100k job with an h1-b worker and only pay them 50k, it's still back to profit after 2 years
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Your theory checks out with my experiences. When I worked at Charter Communications, everybody on the security team that wasn't there on a H1B visa had a general shelf life of one to two years before they shoved off for greener pastures. There was a H1B worker on my team that had been there for 3 years when I started, and he was still there when I left.
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fill a 100k job with an h1-b worker and only pay them 50k, it's still back to profit after 2 years
That one is actually illegal. The minimum on a H-1B salary is $60,000. But there is an additional requirement that the
salary has to be at or higher than the prevailing wage for the job in question.
But even if they manage to illegally pay only 60k a year... The 100k fee divided by the 3 year term still amounts
to 33k a year. And 33k plus 60k is $93,000.
And that's before thinking of all the other extr
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The new H1-B Visa fee is $100,000 a YEAR, so even if you somehow get away with paying your foreign worker peanuts (The minimum is apparently $60,000 a year) the numbers still aren't going to work out for any entry level jobs.
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I support pushing back against H1-B abuse as a way to get cheap labor (as opposed to it's supposed purpose to fill jobs where there is no-one qualified available), but I'm not sure this is the way to do it. Better than nothing I suppose.
$100K is only 1 year of a $100K annual salary, which is pretty low especially considering these are meant to be impossible to fill highly specialized skill sets. So, you pay a $100K fine to get your cheap H1-B, pay them $50K or even $100K/yr, and are still ahead after 2-3 ye
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:3, Informative)
If you read the article - it's a $100k/year fee, not a one time fee
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Ugh. right sentiment, but all these raised fees by the government is crap. it's just more taxation.
Just enforce the f'in rules already on the books about market wages and actually investigate kickback schemes and it would be FINE. (but wouldn't get the headline).
I've known many intelligent and capable H1-B people contributing as W-2s in engineering and product roles at market prices at mainstream tech companies and they were an asset to the industry and the country. Of course due to the reality of s
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The H-1B is a portable visa, you can change jobs on it, though your new employer also has to sponsor you. You can definitely get headhunted away from the company who brought you in, at any time. Your H-1B status is only valid while you're employed, but your H-1B is YOURS and you can take it to a new employer anytime you want (assuming your new employer is willing to sponsor you and files the paperwork).
That's another thing that the $100k fee will complicate - do you get the fee refunded if the person you hi
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:5, Informative)
The bill does three things:
1) Raises wage requirement to $150,000/yr, from $60,000/yr
2) Eliminates program that let recent college graduates remain and work in U.S. for three years without having to apply for a work visa/permit/whatever
3) Trades current lottery-based selection system with one where sponsor employers bid/pay fees for each worker they want to bring in - employers will compete for visas, not simply dump tens of thousands of names into the lottery.
The best change is the $150,000/yr salary requirement. A $60K/yr worker isn't typically a world-class expert on anything, really.
I have mixed opinions on recent graduates needing visas to work, and I'm a bit dubious about the fee structure.
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/h-1b-... [newsweek.com] (/. Linked story behind paywall)
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Glad to see someone is at least trying to close this terrible loophole.
Re: This should stop the abuse of H1-B (Score:4, Informative)
This story is about a "proclamation" Trump signed today; the bill in that link is something else.
https://apnews.com/article/h1b... [apnews.com]
Apparently current law only allows H-1B fees for cost recovery, so there is a good chance that Trump's EO will be blocked.
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No. It will simply move the job abroad. Thinking this could "fix" things is pure insanity.
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Now MS will have to hire the American coal miners who learned to code.
Will probably increase the quality of their products, because coal miners can at least do one job well. My impression is the software makers at MS can do nothing well these days.
A rare good move from Trump (Score:2)
Corporations have long abused these visa to suppress wages in the sector and drive jobs away from skilled US workers.
Re: A rare good move from Trump (Score:3)
Re:A rare good move from Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
Hahahaha, no. All this will do is get the respective jobs offshored. And they will not come back. Another dumb move by somebody that has no clue as to how an economy works.
WFH (Score:5, Interesting)
Tech CEOs are gonna fall back in love with remote work.
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What are the reasons for the RTO push? IMHO, it's to prop up property values and give them a good reason to write off a bunch of taxes on office space more than wanting to micro manage employees. I believe companies are just going to look at this as a reason to offshore the work completely.
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Tech CEOs are gonna fall back in love with remote work.
I think more likely they'll nip this in the bud with extreme prejudice.
(and of course they're already in love with "remote work" when the "remote" is some significantly lower cost area, like India, Eastern Europe, or Texas... and they set up an office there or outsource to there. And yes i understand the argument is that you're co-locating teams and the sharding is at a higher level, but in practice it often ends up with even teams being spread over multiple timezones, let alone that a lot of communicati
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Remember they think globally and act locally. Like we're supposed to but we don't.
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Well the labor market part is right. But the time zone this is nonsense. H1B hires are all but indentured servants. There is always a fear of losing your job, then losing your sponsorship, then being shipped home. So H1Bs tend to not rock any boats within a corporation and will work whatever hours are asked of them. My comment was a cheeky way of saying that corporations have no morals and will always reverse course on a previous "culture" decision they made if it is economically expedient.
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Tech CEOs are gonna fall back in love with remote work.
Obviously. And remote work does work. I have talked to c-levels in some (smaller) fully remote companies. They find it far easier to get highly qualified people, they can offer them far better conditions and salaries. And they still make better profits. The classical, ossified structures of "work" have run their course and are now simply obsolete and cost-drivers.
Will Push More Off-Shoring (Score:3, Insightful)
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In theory it could, but Trump is bound to create tariffs for this as well.
If your company or management are in the US, then you are importing labor or services from overseas. Trump can set a tarriff on the fair market value of that work being performed overseas by non-US workers multiplied by the number of hours.
If you move your company overseas to avoid that tariff, then your customers in the US will pay a tariffs on your products or services instead, whatever you are selling.
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He may do that when he sees this stupid idea be ab (entirely expected) failure. All that will do is that enterprises will move out of the US and then these tariffs will not apply. Obviously, US customers will not pay any replacement tariffs, as that would make the US economy grind to a halt.
Hmm. Come to think with the recent abject Hyundai disaster, maybe destroying the US economy is the goal here.
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or push harder on the AI train.
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That one is already derailing left and right. For example, software writing gets slowed down by about 20% from using AI (and the results may be lower quality on top of that and stress put on developers is higher and some other unsustainable effects): https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-... [metr.org]
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or anywhere else that isn't considered an enemy of the state.
Is there anywhere left, including areas within the borders of the United States, that aren't considered enemies of this particular regime?
Moscow I suppose...
smart! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nearly every TFW candidate in Canada is for fast food.
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Nearly every TFW candidate in Canada is for fast food.
Citation required. Not that I'm saying you're wrong. Just... that's a great soundbite-without-stats. I'd like to see .gov.ca stats on where the TFWs are actually placed. Not applied-for. Approved.
I am concerned that much of the complaint about TFW is xenophobia, because racism and xenophobia are among the loudest siren calls of the conservative extremists to the south. Pollievre did not get the message: don't talk like, act like, sound like, or in any way resemble the dictator to the South. While h
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I really, really hate to agree with him (Score:4, Interesting)
...but I kinda like the idea...in theory
H1-B visas have been used to import cheap workers, not workers with special talents who aren't available locally
There are plenty of qualified workers available, but they aren't cheap
Unfortunately, in practice, this probably won't solve the problem and will simply create other problems
R.I.P. tech industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Great news for Canada, Australia, UK, and EU. They have a vibrant tech culture and it will suddenly get a new influx of labor that can bring about a lot of profit for many businesses.
Trump is playing a loser's strategy at globalization. Ultimately the stakes for him personally are low. But your average working class American is going to be hit hard when the money dries up for the fastest grown and fourth largest industry by revenue in the US, the information technology industry.
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Look supposedly we're supposed to all lose our jobs to AI or something and we've been hearing all sorts of reasons we have to put up with shit.
I don't support Trump in any way but I'm to the point with the tech industry I'll go fucking tint windows or fix rooftops or even maybe even turn crime.
Go ahead and take my job fuckers I'm tired of hearing about it for the past 20 years. Here I am! Kill me now!
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But wait until you hear about the stock market. You know thats our 401ks right? (jerk off motion, eye roll)
Honestly it was mostly automation (Score:3)
The globoization and outsourcing didn't help matters though. And the North American free trade agreement was a disaster for literally everyone except billionaires.
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Not only, but yes. So pushing more globalization (and that is what this move does) is a good idea why?
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50 years of shutting down American manufacturing has ensured that strategy is no longer viable for us. The US is a tech and service economy, and there is no way to go back in time without racing to the bottom of the world economically.
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Indeed. See also the failure of two of the remaining manufacturing giants (Boeing and Intel). You can now get basically anything better and cheaper from non-US sources, unless you are in the US where the tariffs distort the picture. And even there importing is often the only viable choice.
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Donny is not interested in that. He wants local jobs for American yobs.
Hahahaha, no. All he wants is more money and projecting an image that his dumb, criminal self is actually a great leader. He could not care any less about "American jobs" as his actions demonstrate daily. All show, no substance and no idea as to actually get things done. And tons of people fall for it.
Interesting to see this play out.... (Score:2)
That being said, remote work has shown that some of this can be done without being at the office anymore. I t
Great idea (Score:4, Interesting)
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Right, I've heard a few good ideas from them, the problem is always either: (1) It's a lie, (2) It's administered so incompetently it doesn't work.
I'll believe this is really happening when it survives Zuck and Teel's veto power, and Indian accents start disappearing from the halls of the tech palaces.
better would be on $100k on trophy wifes (Score:2, Troll)
Application fee (Score:2)
bye bye jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
1 US engineer = 3 remote Indian engineers (Score:2)
I saw this personally. US engineers get laid off and multiple remote Indian engineers replace each one. One of the problems the companies do not see is that the remote Indian engineers are junior. Once they get enough experience they get hired by another company and leave the project. The turnover is devastating.
Elites thinks they can replace the talent with AI (Score:2)
Slavery is becoming expensive (Score:2)
What if we made India the 51th state of the US?
Debt (Score:2)
What's the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Tech job market is so bad (Score:3)
Why are there any H1-B positions??
There are a million Americans who need work.
And for $1,000,000 (Score:2)
And for $1,000,000, Trump promises expedited visa processing:
https://trumpcard.gov/ [trumpcard.gov]
Just like the $100K requirement, there is no basis in law that allows Trump to do this.
Also, the $100K payment goes into effect in some time this weekend, even though there's no system set up to track or collect the funds.
But I'm sure Trump will accept checks, as long as they are payable directly to him.
How tech companies pretend to need H1Bs (Score:3)
Tech firms *pretend* to not be able to find workers in the US, opting to hire foreign workers instead, for a few reasons. One is that they generally cost less. Two is that it's really, really hard for an H1B worker to change jobs, because they have to be sponsored. This gives the company essentially captive employees.
To be allowed to hire a an H1B applicant, the employer has to "prove" that they can't find any acceptable workers in the US. They do so by crafting the job description and requirements to specifically describe the H1B applicant they are trying to hire, in such a way that nobody else will qualify. It doesn't matter if all the "requirements" are really, truly required for the job, they're just checking a box to make the visa work.
They also have to publicly advertise the openings and be "unable" to find anyone qualified. They check this box by simply refusing to accept any other applicants that interview, by finding some little thing wrong as an excuse to reject them.
How do I know? I've had to jump through these exact hoops at my current company, to enable them to hire H1B developers.
My Humble Experience (Score:3)
I worked for a major tech company that is a household name. In my department of about 60 people, 52 were H1Bs. But, one of our on call rotations required US Citizenship since it dealt with a government client and required a security clearance. Because of this, eight of us had double on calls, and the ITAR one was more frequent. We did not get any kind of bonus for it so that kind of sucked.
The H1Bs got extra vacation in the fall, to go back to India for a month for some holiday that happens, they staggered it so not everyone left at once, though. They got the rest of the normal time off the rest of the year.
Around 2018 the company started doing this weird thing were they obviously tried to trim the US workers. They did things like, required a passport to continue working at the company. They claimed it was for an extra layer of background check. Only 45% or so of Americans have passports, but 100 percent of H1Bs do., so that was an easy low hanging fruit thing, You could apply for one, if you did it immediately, but it took awhile, and they held it against you that you did not already have one. I do not know why it helped a background check, BECAUSE they still could not work on ITAR.
If you work in a majority H1B department, if definitely feels weird sometimes, and like you were not always wanted.
That said, the workers themselves were mostly cool, although they lived in fear of losing their sponsorship, which I think is the bigger appeal to employers than their potentially lower salaries, if they are lower.
They definitely are more obedient and expect and demand less in (they will not balk at coming to the office) some ways, but expect and demand more in others, like vacation.
I was there for about 5 years and as time went on it felt like we were gradually more and more preferring the the Visa holding employees, and even the managers became more and more Indian.
Everybody and everything tries to work every angle to their advantage. That is the one constant in life. If a business spots an angle, they will use it. I guess we all will, but they seem to have more opportunities to do so.
Fix the real problem (Score:3)
Here's an idea.
How about each $100k paid for a H-1B visa is used to educate an American bright enough to fill that job but too poor to put themselves through higher education.
I'm all for taxes to solve problems so long as the money raised is actually spent fixing the problem.
It's not that the country doesn't have the talent. It's just too much talent is going to waste.
Re: (Score:2)
As Trump University students will tell you, you can pay him the $100k, and he'll take the money, but that doesn't mean he's going to do anything for you. I doubt that sum even gets his attention now. You'd have to add a few more zeroes to the end.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump never did anything for anybody else, and he is not going to start now.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be even more stupid. All that would do is make enterprises move fully abroad.