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

reuters.com

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

#111

Post by Loughla »

jpadkins wrote: post #98
frogblast wrote: post #80

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, an…

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…

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.

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

#112

Post by curt15 »

secondcoming wrote: post #68
cogman10 wrote: post #36

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.

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

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

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

#113

Post by mcny »

leakycap wrote: post #90
frogblast wrote: post #80

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, an…

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.

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.

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

#114

Post by frogblast »

jpadkins wrote: post #98
frogblast wrote: post #80

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, an…

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…

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

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

#115

Post by pcl »

frogblast wrote: post #80

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, an…

> 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.

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

#116

Post by Retric »

mlyle wrote: post #94
frogblast wrote: post #80

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, an…

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.

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.

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

#117

Post by leakycap »

checker659 wrote: post #54

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

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.

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

#118

Post by phendrenad2 »

frogblast wrote: post #80

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, an…

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.

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

#119

Post by bobthepanda »

frogblast wrote: post #80

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, an…

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.
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