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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

#361

Post by esalman »

SilverElfin wrote: post #3

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 arbitra…

Yes it means less talent.

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

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

#362

Post by Braxton1980 »

woah wrote: post #307
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.

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

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

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

#363

Post by mancerayder »

roughly wrote: post #85

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…

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.

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

#364

Post by kelnos »

nceqs3 wrote: post #250
suriya-ganesh wrote: post #156

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…

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

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.

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

#365

Post by bubblethink »

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.

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

#366

Post by gustavoaca1997 »

mancerayder wrote: post #363
roughly wrote: post #85

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…

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 worker…

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

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

#367

Post by mancerayder »

legitster wrote: post #152
jpadkins wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

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.

Your second paragraph doesn't follow the first. 90-118K might feel like a lot to you, or to many, but it doesn't mean that those wages aren't dragged DOWN. If you live in SF, NYC, Seattle or other HCOL areas, 90-118K is definitely not HIGH. And software jobs pay WAY more than that. H1's definitely are paid BELOW the prevailing wage for the same job, in the same area. So compare apples to apples.

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

#368

Post by Braxton1980 »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #55

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.

>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?

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

#369

Post by xp84 »

mcmcmc wrote: post #140
roughly wrote: post #85

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…

> 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.

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.

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

#370

Post by kelnos »

jatins wrote: post #63

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.

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.

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