Trump Admin Moves to Impose More Than $100K Fee For H-1B Worker Visas
- Reference: 0185135108
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/24/2023203/trump-admin-moves-to-impose-more-than-100k-fee-for-h-1b-worker-visas
- Source link:
> Trump's temporary fee increase expires in September, one year after it was issued. The proposed rule by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, posted in the Federal Register on Monday, would make a fee of $103,265 permanent. It could be finalized by the end of the year. The H-1B program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with training in specialty fields and offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years. Those visas typically came with fees between $2,000 and $5,000 before Trump's order. The fee would not apply to visas granted to foreign citizens already in the United States on student visas, who make up a large share of new H-1B recipients, or to renewals of current visas.
[1] https://sg.news.yahoo.com/trump-administration-moves-impose-more-131727979.html
Triple it (Score:5, Interesting)
Then make it retroactive. Donate the proceeds to the victims of this program who had to train their replacements.
Re: (Score:2)
you never have to do anything in a job find the door when you see it.
Lul (Score:3, Interesting)
Licking the foot really paid off for big tech, didn't it?
Re: Lul (Score:2)
This basically takes access to H1-B's from JimBob's Trucking Co and sweat shops like Infosys and gives them to Silicon Valley. The letter doesn't mind paying an extra 100k for talent.
Stopped clock (Score:3)
Trump sucks but occasionally his hamfisted ire is aimed at reasonable targets. The H1B system has been pretty terrible for workers for a long time. Employers use H1Bs to overwork and underpay migrant workers, using the serious disruption of losing visa status as a bargaining chip, while depressing the wages of permanent residents.
I don't have much faith that Trump will actually execute this move as advertised without corruptly benefiting himself or some wealthy donor, but on its face I support it.
Are H-1B Workers Displacing Americans with Cheaper (Score:2)
[1]Are H-1B Workers Displacing Americans with Cheaper [hoover.org]
“Instead of hiring Americans, are companies in the U.S. using immigrants with H-1B visas in order to pay them less and save money? The answer may surprise you.”
[1] https://www.hoover.org/research/are-h-1b-workers-displacing-americans-cheaper-labor
Former H1B Visa holder here. (Score:3)
Yep, I was working in the Bay Area in the 90s as a young software engineer there on an H1B.
I'm Scottish and I was lucky enough to have specialised in a tech that the US was lagging behind on during the internet boom.
Got a free University education in Scotland. Something you can still get there today.
I empathise with Americans who feel aggrieved by the H1B visa program and I have no doubt that it is abused - not in my case, my conscious is clear there.
Here's a suggestion, to really make things fair and fix the real problem that I believe you have.
Each time some one get's an H1B, and their employer pays $103,265, that money is then put in a trust fund to educate some American kid who has the brains to do well at University but not the financial means. The only caveat being they must do the course/qualifications that covers the job the H1B is getting.
Otherwise where is that money going? When I was a US tax payer I often wondered where my tax money went.
I could see it back home with the free education and health care.
Not in the US. Didn't like that, so before they could give me a green card I moved back home.
It was an interesting and fun experience and I have great memories of my time there.
Bill Clinton was President and the country was doing well. Glad I didn't hang around until today.
Flame away...
Re: (Score:2)
> Otherwise where is that money going? When I was a US tax payer I often wondered where my tax money went.
It's shoveled into a $40T pit.
Trump forgets that COVID happened (Score:2)
The vast majority of tech workers are able to work remotely. There's really no reason to pay a huge fee for an H1-B when you can hire an outsourcing company. Probably not a great idea to open a branch office in India, you aren't going to save much money since the tax is so high there (40%+)
Uhoh (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't wait to see the comments on this one!
H-1B abuse is Huge in the tech sector and traditionally lamented here. But on the other hand, Trump is the one doing the fixing.
Should be interesting to see how those displaced by H1B workers in the past try to justify more cheap H1B workers
Re: Uhoh (Score:3)
Not the presidentâ(TM)s job. Congress drafts law.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
You know there will be waivers available of course for a one time fee.
Re: Uhoh (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, that is literally the policy being described here.
Supplement for domestic workforce not replacement (Score:4, Insightful)
> Yes, that is literally the policy being described here.
Yes, but that waiver is only worth it for an individual that truly is exceptional. For the more common skilled engineer or scientist the waiver is not worth it, it would be cheaper to just hire domestically, In other words the system is back to what it was intended to be. A supplement for the domestic workforce not a replacement.
Re: (Score:3)
The $103,265 fee is a slap on the wrist. It's not high enough to actually be effective at slowing down employers from using the program.
Re:Uhoh (Score:5, Insightful)
its not meant to make them stop using it. its meant to stop them from using it to replace there entire workforce with them. if someone is Reilly talented and worth the money there gonna have to pay for it. otherwise hire local.
World Cup travelers seem to disagree (Score:1, Flamebait)
> Right now one would have to be insane to consider relocating into US.
According to the people who have never set foot in the USA. Go find a World Cup traveler that visited the USA, even the red states. It seems reality did not quite match what their respective (foreign) media had portrayed.
Which is basically what foreign engineers I have worked with in the past have also said.
Which is basically what foreign students I have gone to school with have also said.
Re:World Cup travelers seem to disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
> According to the people who have never set foot in the USA. [...] It seems reality did not quite match what their respective (foreign) media had portrayed.
>
The parent post still has a point, because "people who have never set foot in the USA" are a large pool of people who might consider relocating to the USA, and they are using "their respective (foreign) media" to make themselves an opinion about the current situation.
Also, the decision is not about how pleasant the life might be in the USA. It's about the very small, but very real, possibility of being randomly brutalized by the immigration police, then being given to the unmissable opportunity to visit an African country you had never seen before (according to the portray by my (foreign) media).
Re: (Score:2)
One thing holds true around the world.
Regardless of how terrible a government may be, the people are generally nice and welcoming when given an opportunity.
Here in the US, foreign visitors don't often visit areas where anti-immigration hostility is high.
Re: (Score:2)
> its not meant to make them stop using it. its meant to stop them from using it to replace there entire workforce with them. if someone is Reilly talented and worth the money there gonna have to pay for it. otherwise hire local.
You know what would work better than that?
Subpoenaing the hiring managers and HR staff and their records to see what sorts of applicants they've received domestically and to interview existing staff of the company and any 'heathunter' types they've used to fill jobs before to find out if they're actually having trouble filling jobs or if instead they're simply trying to replace more expensive domestic employees with foreign workers at reduced salaries.
There have been far too many examples where laid-off or
Difference between slow and stop (Score:2)
I wrote that the amount wasn't enough to slow down H1b hiring. That presumes it's also not enough to stop it as well.
The point being that if the administration actually wants the fee to be effective at slowing down H1b hiring, they need to make it much higher.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Get rid of the pedophile in the white house and my mental health would improve substantially. Get rid of the weird creepy couch fucker too and that sell out mother fucker running the House of Representatives and keep going down until we hit a Democrat to take over the White House and then maybe impeach six supreme Court justices and I think then I could stop Doom scrolling.
But we're not going to do any of that. If I'm really lucky the Republicans will lose the House of Representatives and the Democrats
Re: Uhoh (Score:2)
The Epstein conspiracy as presented by many wasn't real dude. Epstein himself liked the kiddies, and maybe a few others upon request at party hardy island. If Epstein was as powerful as you think he was, he wouldn't have been convicted as he was, nor Ghislane.
the "Joooooos blackmail our whole g-g-government!" and "x is a pedophile i just know it!!" is a bunch of ragebait. The age of consent in the Virgin Islands is 16, so any actual crime was no more than a few isolated events.
Neither of us believes you believe that (Score:2)
But you'll say anything to vote for a pedophile. The question is why?
All I'm saying is I think you would be very upset if certain authorities got a hold of certain digital media in your possession...
Re: (Score:1)
In Silicon Valley or New York, you'd probably be right. But in the rest of America, $103k can be above an IT department's average salary.
Even a blind pig finds an occasional acorn (Score:5, Informative)
He probably won't do whatever he's hinting at. The pattern is "talk mad shit that people want to hear" then "Say you are going to do something about the StupidShit." then "Do something but leave holes a truck could drive through" then "Watch as trucks drive through."
He knows that it's a good "populist" topic (as well it should be, the H1B program is horrible in most dimensions). However, he also knows tons of American corporations use the program to drive down wages.
Re: (Score:2)
government at its best. drive down wages they never go up haven't sense the dam 60s once you factlore inflation and the value lost.
Re:Uhoh (Score:4, Insightful)
The proper way to do this is not a big fee, that is just a government money grab. The proper way is to force a minimum pay rate for H1B employees such that they are paid inline with local rate. This means they are employed because their skills are needed and not available locally, not to save money over employing a local person with the needed skills. The big catch is ensuring creative accounting is not used to under pay the H1B working while pretending to pay them similar rates to local employees.
Re: (Score:2)
will you pay 100k or just hire a local. i think they wont pay the 100k.
Re: (Score:3)
There are lots of higher-level technical jobs that pay annual salaries far exceeding $100k. If it takes only three years to recoup the $100k, if the employee works for them for five years, they've still saved a fairly considerable amount of money.
On top of that I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's possible to take fees paid to the government as tax-writeoffs. Sufficiently large firms might well simply write off the money spent this way directly against their taxes.
Re: (Score:3)
> On top of that I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's possible to take fees paid to the government as tax-writeoffs. Sufficiently large firms might well simply write off the money spent this way directly against their taxes.
It's almost certainly all operational expense, same as the salary paid, which means it's "written off". But "write off" doesn't mean "it's like you didn't have to pay it", it just means that it's subtracted from revenues when calculating profits. Net is that writing something off saves about 21% (the corporate tax rate) of the amount written off.
It's the same as your personal taxes, more or less. When you donate to charity, you get to subtract the donation from your adjusted gross income. If you make
Re: (Score:2)
> will you pay 100k or just hire a local. i think they wont pay the 100k.
Silicon Valley companies will pay the $100k. The positions typically pay $500k+ (base + bonus + equity + benefits) and companies are accustomed to spending tens of thousands of dollars in addition to deal with the H1B filings, and for other immigration services, including fees for green card filings, etc. An additional $100k is painful, but since it's good for 6 years, they're already paying around $3M, so it's only a ~3.5% increase.
Re: (Score:2)
No, if we're not going to eliminate the program, we should lean into the government money grab. Today, we give away these positions in a lottery. Instead, we should auction them off to the highest bidder. Let the free market run up the price of this limited good. Let companies compete for it.
Re: (Score:2)
The kickback part is an example of "The big catch is ensuring creative accounting" I flagged. Yes you are right there will be other factors at play. I still think the core principle is H1B should be tuned to address specific skills shortages, and should not be the cheaper option.
That doesn't work either (Score:2)
Because bringing them into the country lowers the local pay rate. Supply and demand works both ways.
The proper way to do this is to implement socialism so that the economic benefits they're bringing to the country are shared by everyone and no one is Left behind. Also you do away with billionaires because that's too much power for any one individual to have. Basically you can have as much money as you want but when it's not money anymore when it's power we take it away from you that's the line.
We ar
Re: (Score:2)
"government money grab."
Please rewind back to the part where we have a $2T budget deficit that will absolutely implode the economy and kill millions by the interruption of all goods and services as the dollar becomes with $0. There are many money grabs needed. The more the merrier. Just do it where people can afford it.
Re: (Score:2)
> The proper way to do this is not a big fee, that is just a government money grab. The proper way is to force a minimum pay rate for H1B employees such that they are paid inline with local rate. This means they are employed because their skills are needed and not available locally, not to save money over employing a local person with the needed skills. The big catch is ensuring creative accounting is not used to under pay the H1B working while pretending to pay them similar rates to local employees.
I can think of of only one practical way to force employers to pay a competitive wage: make them compete. Once the employee has the visa, they are free to leave their sponsor and work for whoever they want. The only way the employer gets to keep them Is to pay them enough. Combine that with: companies that try to lock in their H1B employees with various gotcha clauses in their contracts get banned from having H1B employees entirely.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, a great idea as it goes to the idea I was trying to get across. I would say that a company that sponsors the cost of bring someone in should be able to lock them in to working for their company for a modest period, say 6 to 12 months, to recover the time and cost of the process, but after that sure let them free on the market.
Here in New Zealand we have a similar system but it is based on needed skills and the worker's visa can be revoked if they are not being paid local market rates for the skills
Re: (Score:2)
> Can't wait to see the comments on this one!
> H-1B abuse is Huge in the tech sector and traditionally lamented here. But on the other hand, Trump is the one doing the fixing.
As the saying goes - even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Re: (Score:2)
And the complaints (so far) are:
1. It's not legal, and the policy was deliberately crafted to be illegal and thrown out by the courts.
2. H1B visas (which are waivers on employment requirements) will have waivers. It's waivers all the way down!
3. The $103,265 fee is not enough.
4. The $103,265 fee is too much. There should be a higher minimum wage for foreign workers instead.
5. Trump's not really going to do it.
6. Trump's going to do it, but he's not making it retroactive to . If is specified, it won't be ea
Re: Uhoh (Score:2)
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Thats my best explanation on this one.
Re: Uhoh (Score:2)
More likely this is posing and nothing else.
If it is something else, it's a threat, solicitation for bribes, or both
It can happen, CA Gov Newsom just did it (Score:2)
> But on the other hand, Trump is the one doing the fixing.
They might be truthful and give him some credit. It can happen, California Governor Gavin Newsom just praised the Trump accounts for kids.
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/0... [nytimes.com]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/us/politics/newsom-trump-accounts.html
Re: (Score:2)
A stopped clock is right twice a day.
That's as simple as it gets. I'm no fan of the orange turd, but it's virtually impossible for him to be wrong on every issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's your comment:
I hate Donald Trump, but I agree with this particular decision.
That wasn't hard.