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

    (www.reuters.com)
    1245 points mriguy | 11 comments | 19 Sep 25 19:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.903s | source | bottom
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    roughly ◴[19 Sep 25 20:40 UTC] No.45306289[source]▶
    I think there’s plenty of interesting debates to be had about immigration policy and its effects on the labor market, but one thing worth noting here is that the primary problem that damn near every other country on earth has isn’t immigration, it’s brain drain.

    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.

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    1. kerpal ◴[19 Sep 25 21:07 UTC] No.45306613[source]▶
    This is so absolutely fundamental to US strategic advantage.

    A huge reason we have so many unicorns is because doing business and scaling in the US is easier than EU or other places.

    A huge part of why the Manhattan Project was successful was also because of substantial brain drain from Europe. I think Scott Galloway wrote about this or may have popularized it.

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    2. SV_BubbleTime ◴[19 Sep 25 23:47 UTC] No.45308166[source]▶
    If you're only talking about the exceptional sure. But when Microsoft fires x and applies for ~x H1Bs the same day... That doesn't seem like what you're talking about at all.

    If an employee is exceptional and a skilled unicorn wrangler... 100K is nothing.

    replies(2): >>45310932 #>>45311371 #
    3. kevin_thibedeau ◴[20 Sep 25 00:23 UTC] No.45308447[source]▶
    A significant number of them were fleeing persecution. General rule: don't be inhospitable to your smart people or they will find greener pastures.
    4. christkv ◴[20 Sep 25 05:09 UTC] No.45310567[source]▶
    I hardly think world famous physicists are comparable to mediocre crud app programmers on a h1b.
    5. bialpio ◴[20 Sep 25 06:21 UTC] No.45310932[source]▶
    Not sure if it applies to H-1B but if a company does mass layoffs, it automatically makes it so that the PERM applications (required for green card, which you need to keep the employee past the visa validity period + extensions; up to 7 years iirc) will be automatically rejected for some time. So it screws over your existing H-1B holders, making your company way less attractive.

    Source: I came to the US on H-1B in 2012. I may be misremembering which stage of the process the mass layoffs affect.

    6. herbst ◴[20 Sep 25 07:23 UTC] No.45311238[source]▶
    I've read brain drain in this thread multiple times. I might agree this happened back then, but I don't know what people mean by it right now. Where is the term coming from suddenly and why is it used to uncritical?
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    7. reverius42 ◴[20 Sep 25 07:52 UTC] No.45311359[source]▶
    "Where is the term coming from suddenly"

    I don't think it's new, I've been hearing it my whole life

    "and why is it used to uncritical?"

    I ... can't figure out what this means.

    replies(1): >>45311370 #
    8. herbst ◴[20 Sep 25 07:54 UTC] No.45311370{3}[source]▶
    In this thread it's thrown around as if everyone is referring to something specific related to immigration.

    Edit:// checked US news. I can see what you all refer to now. To explain media seems to assume the US is having a "brain drain" because of fleeing scientists, some other countries make fun of it and call it their "brain gain"

    replies(1): >>45312279 #
    9. reverius42 ◴[20 Sep 25 07:54 UTC] No.45311371[source]▶
    Part of the problem is you don't know ahead of time (certainly not with 100% certainty) who's going to be an exceptional unicorn wrangler, and who's just going to be a pretty good engineer, unless they already have an incredible track record elsewhere. This will filter out a lot of possible future unicorn wranglers.
    10. crummy ◴[20 Sep 25 11:09 UTC] No.45312279{4}[source]▶
    In New Zealand the brain drain discussion has been going on for decades. We are remote, have a limited economy, wages are low. As a result, many smart kids graduate from university, go travel overseas (particularly Australia and the UK), find jobs with better wages, and never come home. It's referred to in the media as the brain drain.
    11. skylurk ◴[20 Sep 25 12:43 UTC] No.45312894[source]▶
    Nearly every country besides the USA has been experiencing "brain drain" to the USA since at least the end of WW2, and discussing it for just as long.