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

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scope, Mechanics, and Legality of the $100k Fee

  • Confusion over structure: some coverage says “per year,” others “per visa”; readers parse the proclamation and note it’s framed as an entry restriction lifted if the petition is “accompanied or supplemented” by a $100k payment.
  • Key detail: it appears to apply to entry of H‑1B workers, including existing visa holders abroad; this creates a de‑facto 24–48 hour scramble for current H‑1Bs outside the US to re‑enter before the rule takes effect.
  • DHS is given broad discretion to exempt individual workers, companies, or industries deemed in the “national interest,” which many see as an open door to favoritism and political leverage.
  • Several commenters question whether such a fee is legally defensible under existing statutory fee‑setting authority and expect court challenges; others point to recent deference to executive power and aren’t confident it will be struck down quickly.

Labor Market and Offshoring

  • Pro‑fee side: sees H‑1B as a wage‑suppression tool, especially via Indian “body shops,” and expects the fee (plus a separate push to raise minimum H‑1B salaries) to:
    • Make only truly hard‑to‑find or top‑end talent worth importing.
    • Push companies to hire and train domestic workers and reduce abuse of underpaid, “indentured” H‑1Bs.
  • Opponents argue:
    • Many tech workers (including grads) are already struggling to find jobs; this will just accelerate offshoring to Canada, Europe, Mexico, India, Eastern Europe, etc., shifting both jobs and tax base abroad.
    • Big firms can still afford the fee and will keep using H‑1Bs, while startups, universities, and smaller employers are priced out.

Impact Beyond Big Tech

  • Multiple threads highlight non‑tech H‑1B use:
    • Physicians, nurses, teachers, and other professionals in rural or midwestern areas already hard to staff; a $100k hit (especially if annual) is seen as existential for small hospitals and schools.
    • Universities rely heavily on H‑1B for faculty and on the F‑1 → OPT → H‑1B pipeline for grad‑program enrollment and tuition; many predict severe damage to research and non‑elite universities.
  • Some note alternative visas (O‑1, EB‑2, J‑1, TN), but others respond these are slow, narrow, or don’t realistically substitute for most current H‑1B flows.

Abuse, Structure, and Reform Ideas

  • Broad agreement that current H‑1B and related programs are heavily gamed:
    • Consulting firms filing mass registrations, “body shops” underpaying, and employers manipulating PERM ads to avoid hiring domestic applicants.
    • Workers’ dependence on a single sponsor plus long green‑card queues (especially for Indians) creates strong employer leverage and limited mobility.
  • Proposed alternatives:
    • High salary floors (e.g., ≥$150–200k or 120–150% of local/industry medians) instead of or in addition to fees.
    • Auctions where visas go to highest salaries, possibly by sector, to crowd out low‑wage uses.
    • Per‑year, smaller surcharges instead of a single huge application or entry fee.
    • Decoupling status from a single employer and giving long work authorizations so immigrants can change jobs freely, with the fee borne by whoever currently employs them.

Brain Drain, Competitiveness, and Geopolitics

  • Some emphasize that a core US advantage has been attracting global talent; weakening H‑1B is framed as:
    • A gift to competitors (Canada, UK, EU, India, China), who can attract the same people without US friction.
    • Risking “reverse brain drain” as top students choose other destinations or stay home.
  • Others counter that:
    • Current H‑1B use mostly supplies mid‑level, not “exceptional,” talent at lower effective cost; the US should focus its limited slots (or fee‑constrained demand) on truly rare skills via H‑1B or O‑1.
    • Over‑reliance on imported labor disincentivizes domestic education and training and hollows out middle‑class tech careers.

Politics, Motives, and Fairness

  • Many see the move as populist theater aimed at pleasing an anti‑immigration, anti‑elite base rather than a carefully designed fix; comparisons are made to tariffs: big, noisy numbers with messy downstream effects.
  • The broad exemption language for companies or industries raises fears it will become a tool to reward politically compliant firms and punish others.
  • Debate splits between:
    • Those celebrating a long‑desired clampdown on a “legal human‑trafficking” and wage‑suppression pipeline.
    • Those seeing it as xenophobic, economically self‑sabotaging, and cruel to current H‑1B holders abruptly caught outside the US.