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. You can argue how well that’s worked out for us - having worked with a great many extremely talented H1bs in an industry largely built by immigrants, I’d consider it pretty positive - but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.
(c) The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.
"At the Secretary's discretion" means "get your bribes ready". Lobbyists are probably already working the phones on this.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/rest...
> The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.
I think a very high application fee is actually part of a good solution, but is useless by itself.
A flawed proposal:
* Dispense with the 'need to search for a qualified American' which just complicates the process without achieving the stated goal, and includes a ton of legal and bureaucratic expense and time.
* A large application fee paid from the company to the federal government.
* The worker's relocation expenses must also be covered by the company.
* The worker gets a 10 year work authorization on the day of their arrival.
* The worker gets to leave their sponsoring employer on the day of their arrival, if they choose to. The employment contract may not include any clawbacks of anything.
The latter bullet is the key one. That's the one that uses market forces to truly enforces this person is being paid above market wages, and is being treated well, at their sponsoring employer. (which in turn means they don't undercut existing labor in the market).
It also means that employers don't really look abroad unless there really is a shortage of existing labor. But when there is a true shortage and you're willing to spend, the door is open to act quickly.
The obvious defect is that it creates an incentive for the employee to pay the federal fee themselves (hidden) plus more for the privilege of getting sponsored, and the company basically being a front for this process. Effectively buying a work authorization for themselves. I'm not sure how to overcome that. Then again, the current system could also suffer that defect (I don't know how common it is).
The US makes up about 4.5% of the global population and it seems silly to think that the FAANG companies and the new AI startups chasing behind them are going to restrict their hiring to this tiny slice of the global talent pool.
The only effect this is going to have is accelerating the offshoring of jobs through more hiring in India, Europe and Canada, which is a net loss for the US.
I myself became a US citizen two years ago after being on a H1B. I was paid the same as all my peers and for all its shortcomings the program worked for me. It stunning to think this has been closed off, killing the main path for skilled immigration into the US.
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...
Unfathomably cruel.
We'll see a rebalancing for sure.
This allows companies that truly want extraordinary talent to pay a premium to acquire it with no red tape . It also makes it far less likely that they can significantly underpay foreign workers to work in the united states and undercut American employees (at a 50% surcharge, you would have to pay 2/3 the prevailing salary to break even (assuming all employees are the same)).
The 50% number is something I made up, I think we can have an honest discussion about what that number should realistically be (and it should probably be different for different industries). But my main point is it should simply be a percentage tax paid on top of all compensation for foreign employees. This is the correct way to balance domestic companies undercutting domestic labor, while allowing them to access genuinely extraordinary talent with no impedance.
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/graphics/2025-h1b-visa-middlemen-c...
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 country. But I understand where the reasoning is coming from, though.
"The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States. "
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1nlgzzu/trump_signs_p...
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.
I'm deeply unhappy about H1B abuse. I've watched it happen, in front of me. It's definitely a real thing. But I also worry about the legit folks, that want to take advantage of it.
It's my opinion that anyone already here should have a path towards citizenship, or legal permanent residence. The exploitation of people needs to end, and the dignity of everyone in this country should be respected.
Of course we need to have rules, and borders that are secure. It's unreasonable to want to abolish them or close them completely.
Having worked with the recent generation of Indians, I can safely say this can be a good thing. Baseline morality and work ethics for many (not all, but many) in the recent generation of Indians are so low. It’s a generational shift that I can tell. Get rich quick, wannabe try too hard to fit in and have fun with wild Wild West mindset that just has a completely different tone from earlier generations of hard working Indians who helped build some of the major products we use today.
On the other hand, I know many highly talented immigrants in the USA whose contributions to society would be missed if they just couldn’t focus entirely on their work - let alone if they were kept out of the country altogether.
My point: They have identified the right problem (H-1B abuse), but the proposed fix is too drastic and undermines sustainable trust between immigrants and the country. I’d like to be proven wrong, though.
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.
F1 -> OPT -> H1 bridge is way more expensive now.
Universities are bound to lose a ton of money due to this. Those outside of the top 50 will likely get hammered.
It's interesting to read all the analysis in the comments, but I think people are giving far too much credit to the admin in terms of having considered the impacts, the effects, some kind of desired direction for things to move, etc.
It's really much simpler than that: the mob boss has to get a cut of the action. One clue is the "fee" being annual, not one-time. Another tell is that there are no details as to what the collected money will go towards.
I sort of wish it had been done 15 years ago but better late then never.
Boundless is technically right that a $100k fee exists, but the piece glosses over the narrow scope and leans into speculation. It frames the fee like an ongoing tax on every H-1B, which just isn’t what the proclamation says. The difference matters: a one-time petition fee is brutal enough, but calling it annual misstates the policy and inflates the impact.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/rest...
This has been proposed before and I don't really see any downsides. If your company really needs them, just pay them what they're actually worth.
Judging from the reaction, it's almost like what the program really gets used for is to replace domestic workers with desperate, barely-qualified foreigners.
Smarter policy would be to looking into targeting the actual exploitation, where it actually exists (if it’s deemed that the externalities are truly negative), like the outsourcing to cognizant. Of course, we are living under the rule of probably the most inept president in any of our lifetimes; so he doesn’t act methodically, only reflexively to once again reduce US competitiveness over the long term.
Some saying companies will just offshore the roles but I doubt it. That was always much cheaper… if it was just about cost they would have done that already.
This is literally the dumbest administration this country has ever seen. Between tariffs and immigration and now this, it’s like they don’t even know what the consequences of their actions are.
Until anything actually happens there's no reason to take this president at his word.
People want to avoid negative effects from immigration (cultural/language/crimerate)- fine.
But are those people acknowledging how much economical growth was driven by migrant labor over the last half century? Hell no. Would the average alt-righter be willing to sacrifice any fraction of all those compounded gains? Absolutely not- every dollar of tax is too much, even to pay a fraction of the damage that is and will be caused by them (=> energy price/co2 taxation).
As a self-identifying moderate patriot, selfish complainers of that ilk seem a worse plague on their nation than the immigrants they keep whining about.
Which is clearly a good thing, but I fear it signals deteriorating relationships with other countries.
For instance, there is still no action taken about the L-1B visa classification, which is a lot more open to abuse than H-1B is. It has no cap on how many visas can be issued every year. It also has no obligation to pay the employee a prevailing wage, no requirement for a bachelor's degree to qualify, and it cannot be transferred to a different employer (which means employees are stuck with their sponsor until they qualify for a green card).
“The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.”
More command economy, more opportunity for graft.
Of course much of this could be solved by narrowing the gap between the lowest earnings and highest earnings workers so that the tech career path wasn't so high of stakes. Anybody working should have the opportunity to launch into a dignified adult life. There must be a conversation ultimately about where the vast profits of tech firms should sit within our economy.
The first country that cracks this will have streets paved with gold.
Otherwise, if its too onerous, we're just training another countries workforce.
This is how they do it.
What industries are going to get hit hardest? Tech and medicine, two of the largest money makers in the country.
> the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025
anyone on a visa who happens to currently out of the country has ~24 hours to get back without a $100,000 bill
if you're in the states, you won't be removed, but you cannot leave and re-enter without paying up
The original Bloomberg article doesn't state: https://archive.is/tpuut
Some research (okay, okay, I used Claude) indicates that "In summary, while Congress provides the statutory authority and mandates certain specific fees, the specific amounts for most H1B fees are set through the regulatory process by DHS/USCIS based on cost recovery principles and activity-based costing analysis."
Further, "The core authority comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) section 286(m), 8 U.S.C. 1356(m), which authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to set fees for adjudication services "at a level that will ensure recovery of the full costs of providing all such services".
From the legislation ( https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title8/pdf/U... ):
That fees for providing adjudication and naturalization services may be set at a level that will ensure recovery of the full costs of providing all such services, includ- ing the costs of similar services provided with- out charge to asylum applicants or other immi- grants. Such fees may also be set at a level that will recover any additional costs associated with the administration of the fees collected.
What percentage of the AI labs are staffed by either foreign workers or second/third generation immigrants? Look at the composition of high achieving high school students- almost certainly of Asian or Indian descent, certainly many belonging to families of recent immigrants. The pipeline this EO disrupts is immense.
It’s too bad policy won’t actually track economic needs or fairness; it’s mainly to drive the expansion of the political franchise.
Canada is rejoicing for the new boost to its economy.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2024/09/16/the-micros...
I have worked for many US based startups, all remotely. Timezone difference (I am in India) is a big issue unless the company is very well structured to work asynchronously.
Companies hiring top talent may still hire with a $100K additional charge but even at $250K - 400K salaries, this is a lot of additional cost.
Amongst other elements that should be fixed:
* Taxation without representation (i'm suggesting adding the latter, not removing the former)
* The H1B worker must be paid at or above the higher of the median rate at the company for the role or at the employee's request by an independent valuation for the role, this ensures workers are not being paid less
* The fee should be prorated, monthly, over the 6 year span of the H1B, allowing the company to spread it over time and manage cashflow
* The H1B worker should only be contractually required to stay for the average tenure of the role in the industry (which afaik is 18mo right now)
* The H1B worker should be able to easily port their H1B over to another employer. The new employer must pay the fee, prorated, on the H1B, the prior employer will be reimbursed prorated unused fees
Something's gotta give, and the endless dancing with partial offshoring and H1Bs is band-aiding over two options: a bloodbath for American workers where competing for their jobs is actually opened up to the globe, or a massive, nationalist set of labor protections to stop other countries from bidding on work asked for by the US markets. Making H1Bs more costly is a little stronger than a Band-Aids, but not by much.
H1B visas are for rank and file employees with just a skill.
This allows employers to indenture servitude employees, depresses American wages, increases unemployment, increases rent prices in areas with high levels of immigration, and hurts American culture.
Most jobs are not that hard and a company should invest in Americans instead of immigrants if it want's to continue to do business here and enjoy the fruits of America.
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-ama...
I know a few companies that were relying on those heavily and it sure would help if those jobs went to Americans.
https://www.npr.org/2017/07/20/538387033/trumps-private-club...
It sounds like F1 and TN visa holders will be able to acquire H1B visas without triggering the fee (but no international travel afterwards or the fee would be triggered).
I suspect that the o1 and l1 visas will get more use if this actually gets enforced.
I also suspect that the large tech companies don't overly mind since they all have very active offshoring programs.
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...
Secretary-certified investigations, as well as other H-1B-related investigations, are important tools the department will use in Project Firewall to hold employers accountable and protect the rights of American workers. Violations may result in the collection of back wages owed to affected workers, the assessment of civil money penalties, and/or debarment from future use of the H-1B program for a prescribed period of time.
I want people to come here legally, put down roots, and buy into our way of life. I love to see patriotic first gen immigrants. I don't want our country used as a piggy bank just because we happen to have good paying jobs right now.
China: 11.7% of H-1B approvals
All other nationalities: 17.3% combined
Src: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/22/h-1b-fee-hike-whos-...
Does the extension also cost 100k?
I don't know the statutory authority under which this is being done, if this is true it will come out in the next few days.
I would have preferred a simple auction, seems like the most reasonable solution.
I would be totally fine with this if it was the former, but I would bet that it won't be...
However, the unsolved problem is that this could just lead to more offshoring by these same tech companies who are abusing the program now. Not sure if there's any way to stop that.
Amazon Com Services LLC- 10,044 H1-B visa holders Tata Consultancy Services LLC- 5,505 Microsoft Corporation- 5,189 Meta Platforms- 5123 Apple Inc- 4,202 Google LLC - 4,181 Cognizant Technology Solution - 2,493 JP Morgan Chase and Co - 2,440 Walmart Associates Inc - 2,390 Deloitte Consulting LLP - 2353
I'm going to speculate that this little is lost by hardening the h1b. The 100 000 a year is not going to stop someone from hiring truly "exceptional" talent.
Companies like Disney, too, have committed abuses with the H1B. It's not just big tech, it's widespread across the United States. I think Americans privileged with different Visa or residency status will benefit.
There's a reason Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and others have been expanding offices and raising TC in Eastern Europe and India for years.
The main industries that will be severely hit are chip design, biotech, pharma, and STEM academia.
Good for India though, who needs a "Thousand Talents" program when the targets of a brain drain are to cost prohibitive to hire in the US.
Meaning now companies can either hire an American new grad for 100k a year or pay 250k a year to import someone. It also still allows companies to bring over highly skilled foreign workers for which there are no American equivalents.
Really happy with the approach and I think it will be a massive boon for US tech and knowledge workers
1. Hire more American workers (pay more, maybe they don't exist so don't hire)
2. Move their offices overseas (already happening, we should see an acceleration)
Ok, I guess AI could also start replacing more roles, but we won't see that productivity for a year or two.
If companies choose 2 over 1, it will mean fewer jobs overall in the USA (including support and service jobs).
1) All countries are free to come up with as strict or as loose immigration/tourist visa requirements as they like.
2) Companies can source remote labor from anywhere with zero government overhead.
3) Companies cannot source physical labor from abroad.
4) Reform local housing laws so that housing is not used for speculation/tied to employment.
Then communities can finally be communities, work can be work, and tourism can be tourism.
- stomach the cost increase,
- reduce the number of H-1Bs they hire,
- move (the company) out of the US (i.e. to less imposing jurisdictions).
If companies choose the latter, the irony is the resulting reduction in US tax revenue from companies moving out could outweigh the gains in revenue from the $100k H-1B tax, thus resulting in lower US government tax revenues due to the change.
Come to europe! The taxes are higher, and you have to pick your country wisely depending on what your goals are, but the politics are nicer and you often get healthcare
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...
oof, that's a big price increase.
I don't know many tech workers who criticize H1B visas, outside of maybe the way that they empower the employer over employees.
It says that the payment is for H1B visa applicants who are currently outside the country?
This was a live a few hours ago on H1B news.
Recently Trump also met with Indias arch enemy Pakistan’s de facto leader (military chief) in Washington and shortly following that you had Saudi-Pakistan NATO like alliance announced (of course US is major allies for both of those countries). It is interesting because pre-election Trump touted many Indians and even had Modi joining him in one of the largest Indian gatherings. But I guess Trump admin being the wild card it has always been policy wise had a shift. What that leads to is still to be seen.
Recent SCO summit where India and China had some shared alliance pledges can give some hints what’s to come but it’s interesting he didn’t so far do so with Chinese students and had in fact a U turn on allowing 600000 students with their visas as part of the trade negotiations.
> Section 1. Restriction on Entry. (a) Pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), the entry into the United States of aliens as nonimmigrants to perform services in a specialty occupation under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000 — subject to the exceptions set forth in subsection (c) of this section. This restriction shall expire, absent extension, 12 months after the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025.
Could be interpreted to mean that anyone who leaves the country on a _current_ H1B and attempts to return might be blocked if they don't have proof of the payment having been made, despite the fact that no process currently exists to remit said payment.
I'd love to say it's doubtful this administration would do something so callous, asinine, and cruel, but...
A 90 day pause is next if the markets crash over this next week.
Either way, this is the sub definition of "AGI". Time for the "AI Agents" to prove their worth as advertised and hyped.
Or else...
It should be an auction.
The annual salary should match the fee (unless below some minimum).
I’ll wait till I form an opinion on this.
We are in 2025!
Decentralisation is important due to the high cost of living in cities. Bring life to less populated areas.
"if H1Bs are supposed to be a means of obtaining labor not available domestically it's curious they're cheaper than domestic labor
an easy way to ensure that they aren't directly substituting for domestic labor would be to add a $100k surcharge per head"
Post nothing here you would not mind showing to a border guard.
Like seriously, I get this is very impactful, but don't risk your livelihood to argue with internet strangers.
You’ll probably have a 2 hour commute too, and in your free time mostly live in your car because only the big cities have any degree of walkability.
What good is more disposable income if i’m too afraid to walk alone at night.
It is absolutely clear that there is H1B abuse and I'm looking directly at the bodyshops like Infosys and Tata. Here's how it goes:
1. Apply for as many visas as possible. This is done primarily for Indian nationals for reasons which will become clear;
2. As the employer you really don't care which ones are approved or how many because what you're going to do is farm out those employees, whether there's 1000 of them or 10,000 of them;
3. Because there is an annual quota and applications have expanded so much, the chance of success is about 1 in 3 currently in the annual lottery. And a Principal Engineer in AI at Google or Meta has the same chance of success as a junior developer at Tata. There may be other options for the first person such as EB1 or NIW or L1 but that's really beyond the scope;
4. As part of this process you have to "prove" you cannot fill a position with a US resident or citizen. There is a whole process for this to minimize the number of applicants and to reject any who happen to find your newspaper ad and apply. This also applies to the Green card Labor Certification too, to a higher degree. Part of this is to make sure the employee is getting paid enough for their job and area. This is called a prevailing wage determination ("PWD"). This process doens't really work, which I'll get into later;
5. So you, as an Indian national won the H1B lottery and your visa is approved. You come to the US and hope Tata finds you a job where they farm you out at $200-500 per hours while paying you $50 or thereabouts;
6. Now the employer starts doing things they're technically not allowed to do, like if they can't find you a job they stop paying you. You may fall below the PWD because of this;
7. A H1B is valid for 3 years, extendable by another 3 for a total of 6 years, after which you're technically meant to leave the country. But what happens is the employer will file for an employment-based green card for you. If they do this in the first 5 years you can remain while that case is pending;
8. There are annual quotas for how many green cards are issued for each employment category. Additionally no more than 7% each year can be issued to any single country, based entirely on your country of birth, not your actual citizenship. And if you're married and have children under age, they will also count against these quotas.
9. So because H1B applicants are disproportionately Indian natioanals, there is a MASSIVE bottleneck for employment based green cards. As such, there is a HUGE backlog. Currently, USCIS is processing green cards for EB3 applicants from India who have a priority date of August 2013. That means their PERM was approved on or before August 2013;
10. So this is how these bodyshops can abuse Indian nationals. Those nationals really can't leave their job. Not easily anywway. There are laws that if they change jobs they get to keep their priority date but the new employer has to file an entirely new green card applications, including doing the entire PERM process again. Oh and if the employer moves area or their jobs changes significantly, it may invalidate their PERM too.
So these bodyshops can keep essentially indentured servants for 15-20+ years and at any time can fire that person. The power imbalance is so massive. This suppresses wages for everyone.
And these people are in the same cateogry as highly paid engineers in tech companies who have substantially better conditions.
Also, at any point along the way the USCIS can simply decide to take a whole bunch of extra time for literally no reason. They have a policy to randomly audit ~30% of applications. Why? They will never tell you. Their arguemnt is to avoid people "gaming" the system by working out the audit criteria so there's a bunch of random "noise" in there. Literally.
Well that doesn't sound bad right? Extra scrutiny? Except now you've added 1-2 years to the processing for literally no reason. You may get a request for evidence ("RFE") out of it too, which might add another year too. This can go multiple rounds too. I know people who spent 5 years going through audits and RFEs. One in particular is an engineering director at Google now.
While tech companies like Google, Meta, etc are better than the bodyshops they absolutely use this system to suppress wages, again because of the power imbalance.
It doesn't have to be this way. Take Switzerland as an example. I'm rusty on the details but IIRC if you're on a B permit (work permit like an H1B, tied to an employer) for 5 or 10 years (EU citizen is 5, otherwise 10, generally), you automatically get a C permit, which is basically a green card.
All this to say is that I have mixed feelings on this $100k fee. It will absolutely cut demand for H1Bs. It will decimate new graduate H1Bs but there's an argument that US residents and citizens should get priority for entry-level positions anyway, right?
If all this comes with much less paperwork, like skipping the whole LC process, then maybe large employers will pay it because they absolutely do spend a fortune on immigration lawyers.
If anything, the entire immigration system needs an overhaul but there's no political will for that. There are no votes in it. Quite the opposite: any serious attempt can be dismissed as "they're stealing our jobs".
I also think layoffs at large companies should absolutely preclude you from sponsoring H1Bs entirely for 2+ years.
Visas are used principally by tech sector
Over 70% of beneficiaries of H-1B visas enter US from India
Latest move in Trump's broader immigration crackdown
Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here. "If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs," U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said."
Absolutely. I've seen so many H1-B's doing run of the mill IT work. In the past, some job adds said "H1-B preferred." That's on top of all the Indian outsourcing.
It looks like Trump is one again making it expensive to use a foreign asset to encourage use or development of local assets. If they're truly talented and rare, then the $100,000 will be worth paying. I could see the A.I. field doing that since they're already doing it. Many will consider hiring or training Americans.
MAGA (and most Americans) don't seem to have any issue with immigration -what they have a issue with is the culture/skin-color/ethnicity of who immigrates. Indeed this is where the country quotas come from - Europe with 20 odd countries has 20x the priority than India or China.
If the US had an ounce of honestly they'd just make this explicit instead of beating around the bush. Since people have better opinion of the Chinese and other "white" East-Asians (admittedly the fairer gender only), just restrict it explicitly to "race" of Caucasians and there "Yellow" races.
It'll save Indians and other "suburbans" a lot of trouble not dealing with this farce of "liberalism" going forward. I genuinely mean this - given how things are going, Indians will find themselves in the place of Jews in Nazi Germany quite soon. And much like the useless British-colonial state that governed Israel then, the vestigial British state in India which is as internet upon Anglo-American triumph today, can't and will do jack shit for them.
However, H1Bs have been a thorny issue for a while, and this might be the rebalancing sorely needed. If Capital can freely import cheaper labor ad infinitum from abroad (or outsource it), then that deteriorates domestic stability while amplifying a form of Capitalist Imperialism abroad. Thus far, China's been the only country to really take full advantage of this long-term strategy error, and a lot of tech folks have been warning that failing to address known flaws in the visa process will ultimately leave us at a disadvantage in the long run, much like we did with manufacturing.
A high application fee is a start, but the better solution is dispensing with H1Bs entirely in favor of green card sponsorship with associated work contract. If these talented workers are that badly needed, companies would have no compunction sponsoring their permanent residency and, eventually, naturalization. Long-term data suggests none of the tech industry is really doing this, which means these "uniquely talented workers" are just replacing existing American workers at lower wages and higher precarity.
I love my international colleagues, and I want them to be treated with the same dignity and respect I receive. H1Bs do not, and cannot, accomplish this outcome.
So there is a tension between competition and increased opportunities and wage growth through increased company growth.
But how does this work out in practice? Luckily, there have been a lot of studies about the impact of the H1B program, which you can find on Google Scholar or SSRN. An extremely quick scan shows mixed findings that are hard to summarize, which is understandable because the dynamics are complex. (Contemplating getting Gemini to do a Deep Research report on this.)
So to narrow things down, I looked for empirical studies that focus on the specific counter-factual, "how would native workers fare if there were no H1B?" Interestingly, while I actually found some, even the recent studies (from 2022-2025) rely on empirical data from 2006 - 2008. That was when the H1B moved to a lottery system, creating a natural experiment allowing for comparison between firms that won and lost the lottery. (One study does find that limited data from 2022 corroborates its findings.) Not perfect, but better than hypotheticals.
Here's a government page with a very brief overview of two relevant studies: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12966 (The page doesn't scroll, but the PDF can be downloaded.)
To summarize, the studies find that there was no negative impact on native-born workers in terms of employment, and in terms of wages, some saw increases and others saw decreases in the range of 3-5%, depending on age, tenure and level of education.
But interestingly, the 2025 study also found that winning a lottery also increased the chance by 2.5% that the firm survived. Causation and correlation etc. aside the implications for employment are clear: if a firm does not survive, all employees, native or foreign, lose their jobs. This is an example of the dynamic I mentioned above.
Beyond these studies, I follow a labor economist and it's fascinating to see how these dynamics have been playing out over the last few years in the broader economy. As a relevant example, there is a credible theory that increased immigration was what helped the US manage its inflation crisis:
https://fortune.com/2024/04/12/immigration-inflation-economy...
Lets not act like this is a good faith adjustment of concerns.
Before you downvote and curse me out, please understand that I have trained dozens of H1Bs throughout my career and helped them be better developers while knowing full well what the overall game looked like. I did it wholly without prejudice.
Deep down, I always knew we would hit that inflection point and we did. I don't think it is fixable at this point. Thus, it makes sense for politicians to finally consider addressing the abuse. I currently counsel young people to not become software engineers/developers. Aside from the lack of jobs, there is the awful ageism that strikes right when family is the most expensive (college aged kids). I'm very fortunate in that I saved like a madman and we inherited some wealth, which we INVESTED and didn't just blow on cars, houses, and vacations the way most dipshit Americans do these days. So when the inevitable career abbreviation took place, I was at least prepared. But I'm no less bitter, and that's the truth.
Congress makes laws. The executive implements them.
It could be a fantastic idea. But then make it a law. Give the president the power to do something like this.
Debating the merits without focusing on that first legitimizes this crazy psuedo law making Trump engages in and will enable him to be more arbitrary in other areas.
Now Trump needs to go after all the "founders" scamming the US through their O-1 visa. That shit needs to end yesterday.
According to many economists, the presence of immigrant workers in the United States creates new job opportunities for native-born workers. This occurs in five ways. First, immigrant workers and native-born workers often have different skill sets, meaning that they fill different types of jobs. As a result, they complement each other in the labor market rather than competing for the exact same jobs. Second, immigrant workers spend and invest their wages in the U.S. economy, which increases consumer demand and creates new jobs. Third, businesses respond to the presence of immigrant workers and consumers by expanding their operations in the United States rather than searching for new opportunities overseas. Fourth, immigrants themselves frequently create new businesses, thereby expanding the U.S. labor market. Fifth, the new ideas and innovations developed by immigrants fuel economic growth.
Similarly, a recent study found that, between 2005 and 2018, an increase in the share of workers within a particular occupation who were H-1B visa holders was associated with a decrease in the unemployment rate within that occupation. Another recent study found that restrictions on H-1B visas (such as rising denial rates) motivate U.S.-based multinational corporations to decrease the number of jobs they offer in this country. Instead, the corporations increase employment at their existing foreign affiliates or open new foreign affiliates—particularly in India, China, and Canada. A study conducted in 2019 revealed that higher rates of successful H-1B applications were positively correlated with an increased number of patents filed and patent citations. Moreover, such startups were more inclined to secure venture capital funding and achieve successful IPOs or acquisitions.
The available data also indicate that H-1B workers do not earn low wages or drag down the wages of other workers. In 2021, the median wage of an H-1B worker was $108,000, compared to $45,760 for U.S. workers in general. Moreover, between 2003 and 2021, the median wage of H-1B workers grew by 52 percent. During the same period, the median wage of all U.S. workers increased by 39 percent. In FY 2019, 78 percent of all employers who hired H-1B workers offered wages to H-1B visa holders that were higher than what the Department of Labor had determined to be the “prevailing wage” for a particular kind of job.
$100k is a big pizzo (protection fee)!
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-19/ted-cruz-...
> “That’s right outta ‘Goodfellas,’ that’s right out of a mafioso going into a bar saying, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said, using the iconic New York accent associated with the Mafia.