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

(www.reuters.com)
1245 points mriguy | 2 comments | 19 Sep 25 19:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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cogman10 ◴[19 Sep 25 20:25 UTC] No.45306123[source]▶
IMO, the fee is the wrong thing that needs adjusting. It's the salary that should be adjusted. The minimum salary for an H1B should be $200k. It's something like 50k right now which is ridiculous especially with all the restrictions an applicant is under. It both suppresses wages and abuses the worker.
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dbish ◴[19 Sep 25 20:28 UTC] No.45306145[source]▶
Why not both?
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cogman10 ◴[19 Sep 25 20:32 UTC] No.45306195[source]▶
Because I don't really want to penalize a company for bringing in foreign labor. If a company can't find someone for a specific job or role then I don't care if they go abroad to find that person.

What I care about is the current system isn't being used to find hard to find labor, it's used to bring in cheap labor in an abusive situation.

We as a nation are really better off if we bring in the best in the world to work here with a cushy salary.

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1. dbish ◴[19 Sep 25 20:34 UTC] No.45306226[source]▶
The fee should help ensure that only higher paying jobs or truly hard to find roles would be worth paying for as well (not that this is the right option, but playing it out). You would gladly pay 100k if the role already is high paying, it will be a small fraction of the cost, you won’t do that if it’s a couple year salary. It will also help curb abuse through multiple applications. I agree hard to find jobs for highly talented people (who are paid well) should be brought in.
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2. cogman10 ◴[19 Sep 25 20:45 UTC] No.45306336[source]▶
Well, again, I don't really care about prioritizing local hires. The 100k fee really only penalizes the company from hiring abroad.

I'd much rather push everything into the salary of the person being hired. Both because it ends up raising the median salary for local workers and because it stimulates the local economy where that person is brought in. It's also a yearly fee. I think there's value in getting a very capable person working in your company and having a high salary is one way to make such roles highly competitive. A highly capable person will ultimately make everyone they work with more capable.