The Trump administration said on Friday it would ask companies to pay $100,000 per year for H-1B worker visas, prompting some big tech companies to warn visa holders to stay in the U.S. or quickly return.
The change could deal a big blow to the technology sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China.
Since taking office in January, Trump has kicked off a wide-ranging immigration crackdown, including moves to limit some forms of legal immigration. The step to reshape the H-1B visa program represents his administration’s most high-profile effort yet to rework temporary employment visas.
It’s another extortion trick. The administration has a way to waive the fee. He’s going to use it to get tech to bend the knee.
Maybe. Could be just needing to offset tax cuts. The present administration and Congress has has cut taxes on the wealthy. Either they find new sources of revenue to fill the hole, or they run up deficit.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/what-we-know-about-the-us-h-1b-visa-program/
This would amount to a tax, mostly on the tech industry employing skilled workers out of India, of about $40B/year.
There’s really very little keeping tech jobs in the us. If h1-b’s are too expensive they’ll just be remote jobs to another country. Just when we were finally bringing tech jobs back, whooosh
Uh, they will run of the deficit, not report honestly, and fuck the American economy.
From June 2025, so it’s probably worse projections now.
Sure, Trump had COVID, but his years were ramping up spending significantly before. The idea that Trump is some sort of “shrewd business man” is a complete lie. They supposedly cut all these jobs & they are still going to spend more than last year. So it’s just pure projection.
As I recall from past reading, in general, the US runs up the least deficit during periods when control of the government is split. That is, the Democrats block some of the things that the Republicans want to do with funds, and the Republicans block some of the things that the Democrats want to do with funds. Tax cuts, spending, whatever.
Right now, the Republicans hold a trifecta, control all of the Presidency, House, and Senate, so my expectation is that they will probably tend to adopt policy that runs up more deficit than the norm, since they’re unchecked.
Assuming that the Democrats take the House in the midterms, though, the GOP will need to compromise on new policy after that.
Yeah, I’m trying really hard to find the gotcha on this one, but it’s starting to look like they might have just accidentally stumbled onto a good policy.
It will, of course, be administered badly, and probably applied in a way that doesn’t stand up in court, but the idea itself seems sound. If you’re really so desperate for talent to fill that role that you have to bring in someone from overseas, the extra cost is just part of doing business. But if you’re just searching overseas for cheaper labour, this kills that option outright.
As the article notes, it could still have negative side effects, like seeing companies move jobs overseas, but I don’t find that argument entirely convincing. If it was that easy wouldn’t they have already have moved those jobs instead of dealing with a visa lottery?
Unfortunately I suspect the way this plays out is that in about a week they quietly drop it and then FAANG donate a giant pile of money to Trump’s “charities” or whatever grift he’s up on now. There’s no way he actually messes with his financial backers like this. Most likely the whole thing is just a shake-down.
All this policy will do is encourage keeping employees offshore.
I mean, I’m not saying that it’s a good policy. My kneejerk take is that it’s probably not a good policy. I’m just saying that I don’t think that there necessarily has to be a more-elaborate motive than trying to pull in more tax from alternate sources.
EDIT: Also, a lot of these are multinationals. So in terms of the companies involved, they can probably shift workers for whom the tax would be fatal for visa prospects to foreign offices somewhere, as long as the workers are still willing to work for the companies on those terms. That could keep them working for the company. That will kill the path to US citizenship for the workers, though, which an H1-B permits for. In general, I’m skeptical that discouraging highly-skilled workers from becoming US citizens is a great idea for the US.
EDIT2: I’d add that Trump’s been on record as making statements about his H1-B policy that are extremely inconsistent. Back when campaigning for his first term, IIRC he claimed that he would expand them, slash them, and leave them alone, partly depending upon who he was talking to. Just last year, he was talking about how they were just fine:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/elon-musk-vows-war-over-h-1b-visa-program-amid-rift-with-some-trump-supporters-2024-12-28/
So it might also be wise to take pronouncements from Trump on the matter with a grain of salt. I don’t know how serious this is from the article.
And, as those people who keep posting the rainbow colored “Lets talk about the Epstein files” memes keep pointing out, Trump has had a pretty long history of doing outrageous things to try to direct public attention away from other things that he doesn’t want discussed.