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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

#611

Post by fooey »

softwaredoug wrote: post #561
bhouston wrote: post #531

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/g…

OTOH many H1Bs come with the intent of moving to the US and permanent residence eventually. Which makes our workforce stronger.

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

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

#612

Post by iancmceachern »

rr808 wrote: post #547

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.

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.

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

#613

Post by zahlman »

archeantus wrote: post #586

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.

I have to say, when one thinks of jobs available at Walmart, tech doesn't exactly come to mind first.

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

#614

Post by rokkamokka »

jghn wrote: post #588
tenpies wrote: post #556

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.

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.

Another way to solicit donations, let's say

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

#615

Post by rocha »

Alex3917 wrote: post #533

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.

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.

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

#616

Post by yodsanklai »

LPisGood wrote: post #514
osnium123 wrote: post #511

Won’t this mean that companies will move jobs to India, China or even Canada?

Why did they not do that before, if it was feasible?

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.

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

#617

Post by fastball »

epistasis wrote: post #572
bhouston wrote: post #531

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/g…

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.

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.

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

#619

Post by wrt271Ja »

epistasis wrote: post #572
bhouston wrote: post #531

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/g…

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.

Companies are laying off people, so there is no competition for labor.

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

#620

Post by kg »

LPisGood wrote: post #537
tomrod wrote: post #524

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.

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?

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.

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