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

I think this is an upfront cost, not an annual cost.

From CNN:

"Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters on a call Friday evening that the administration came to the fee of $100,000 per year, plus vetting costs, after talking with companies.

He noted that the payment structure is still under discussion with the Department of Homeland Security, in terms of “whether we’re going to charge the $300,000 up front or $100,000 a year for the three years.”

It’ll be struck down in court within a year. The question is: who’ll be brave and bring the case?

It is an annual cost. This will dramatically shake up the US tech industry. I expect to see engineering budgets increase, and less Americans struggling to get interviews and ultimately jobs at companies HQ'ed here.

The originally stated purpose of the H1-B program was to import top-tier elite talent but anyone who watched it evolve saw that it became terribly exploitative. I've watched as companies that I've worked for have given 1/4 market rate or worse to H1-B hires. They got addicted to cheap talent. It stopped being about talent on the hiring side and more about increasing head-count at a major discount.

Bring in top talent, but pay them what they're worth if you do. A top-talent elite hire should easily be worth double what a native-born top-talent elite hire would be worth if this program can just do what it was designed to do.

I hope this is the outcome. Can anyone convince me that these companies won’t just hire more Indians in India (or outsource to Indian companies)?

annual cost and they raised the minimum pay to 150k so now its a minimum of 250k to hire an h1B. Or they can hire a new american grad, pay them 80k and train them

My hope is that this unleashes American tech workers and the US market again. There is almost no reason to apply for H1B anymore except for the original purpose of hiring workers with very unique skill sets that cannot be found in the US. This could be the most monumental thing this Admin does for tech workers as long as there is not some monkey paw aspect to this

I will be demanding that my company do so, and I think quite a lot of the people reading this should do the same.

There's obviously a monkey's paw aspect! Big US tech companies are going to immediately freeze their hiring budgets until they get clarity on whether this fee is permitted and how they should pay it for existing employees. Hope you're not an American tech worker looking for a job right now!

Because they would have done it already. Why go through the hassle of bringing over an h1b if you could just hire them overseas now? The use case for h1b is different from outsourcing. If the requirements need to have someone in their US branch then you use h1b.

>as there is not some monkey paw aspect to this

Has there been anything that hasn't had a monkey paw aspect? These guys have ZERO credibility left and its only eight months in.

Good point, TACO all the way. Believe in TACO, TACO is life.

But one alternative is for your company or industry to arrange an exception.

CEOs who go that route should face criminal bribery charges in 2029, so I hope my company chooses more wisely.