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

(www.reuters.com)
1245 points mriguy | 8 comments | 19 Sep 25 19:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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jpadkins ◴[19 Sep 25 20:49 UTC] No.45306392[source]▶
The top end of H1B has been great for America. In the last few decades, there has been growth of abuse of the program to get mid level talent at below market rates which really hurts the middle class in America. People need to understand that most reformists don't want to get rid of the truly exceptional immigration to the US. We need to limit the volume, especially the immigrants that are directly competing with a hollowed out middle class in the US. Let me know if you want further reading on this topic.
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legitster ◴[19 Sep 25 20:56 UTC] No.45306474[source]▶
The median pay of an H1B visa holder is $118k. The 25th percentile is $90k. This is from the government's official data: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/O...

Any suggestion that the program is dragging wages down instead of dragging wages up is not just misleading but factually wrong.

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foota ◴[19 Sep 25 21:02 UTC] No.45306549[source]▶
What's the median pay of big tech workers? I started at 150k 8 years ago as a new grad, for comparison.
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legitster ◴[19 Sep 25 21:09 UTC] No.45306637[source]▶
OP's comment still makes no sense then. H1bs are not hollowing out "middle class" wage earners then - the most you could say is that they are slightly reducing income of high-income earners.

But also, the H1b median salary for a software engineer is ~$120k, which is almost identical to that of the US median overall - so all of this hullabaloo seems pretty groundless.

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1. alephnerd ◴[19 Sep 25 21:12 UTC] No.45306678[source]▶
Pretty much. All this did is now create a thousand talents program for India.

H1B visa abuse by consultancies and mass recruiters is a real issue, but this now incentivized companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Pfizer, Cheveron etc to expand their Indian offices.

Edit: can't reply

> Was there any reason for them not to? It's cheaper than H1B anyways.

Spending an additional $10-15k in visa filing fees isn't that big of a deal for an employer who's already paying around 25-35% in withholding and benefits, but at $100K that makes it enough that if you needed to sponsor 10 people on an H1B, you now hit the monetary amount to avail GCC tax rebates and subsidies in most of Eastern Europe and India, where they will give you an additional $10-20k in tax credits and subsidies per head.

Basically, opening a new office abroad just to save on $10-15k of filing fees per employees wasn't worth it, but now that it'll be $100k per employee, the math just shifted.

> Why is this parasitic organization allowed to incorporate?

VC now, not a director anymore. But help me find a new grad with 3-4 years of exploit development and OS internals experience in the US. I can't.

On the other hand, I can in Tel Aviv. There's a reason the entire cybersecurity industry has shifted outside the US.

Large sectors of the US tech scene just lack ANY domestic know-how.

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2. _DeadFred_ ◴[19 Sep 25 21:33 UTC] No.45306915[source]▶
OK. But I'm not fighting against them for jobs here. I'm not fighting against H1Bs who are willing to put up with different shared housing situations than I am for housing here.
3. giantg2 ◴[19 Sep 25 21:36 UTC] No.45306950[source]▶
"...to expand their Indian offices."

Was there any reason for them not to? It's cheaper than H1B anyways.

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4. red_rech ◴[19 Sep 25 22:07 UTC] No.45307296[source]▶
So you’re going to hire foreigners in the US or you’re going to ship the whole operation overseas. Why is this parasitic organization allowed to incorporate?
5. bigfatkitten ◴[19 Sep 25 22:22 UTC] No.45307446[source]▶
Because being in roughly the same timezone as the people you’re managing is underrated.
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6. giantg2 ◴[19 Sep 25 22:28 UTC] No.45307501{3}[source]▶
This is mostly just a benefit for mixed teams. If you have entire departments offshore, then you have less cross-zone interaction.
7. kelvinjps ◴[19 Sep 25 23:36 UTC] No.45308090{3}[source]▶
Does it matter for a company at the size of Google?
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8. disgruntledphd2 ◴[20 Sep 25 08:24 UTC] No.45311515{4}[source]▶
Yes, as platform teams are generally colocated somewhere else.