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

(www.reuters.com)
1245 points mriguy | 1 comments | 19 Sep 25 19:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bhouston ◴[20 Sep 25 01:12 UTC] No.45308820[source]▶
This is actually smart. Many H1B visas are used to undermine fair labor wages for already local talent. We should ensure that H1B visas are for actual unique talent and not just to undercut local wages.

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...

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epistasis ◴[20 Sep 25 01:20 UTC] No.45308920[source]▶
This is very short term thinking, in that it assumes a constant amount of work and ignores the global competition for labor.

If the US loses its massive lead in the network effects of a large labor pool, the amount of work in the US will shrink, both by moving to other countries and less overall innovation.

This is not a beneficial move for most software engineers.

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tnel77 ◴[20 Sep 25 01:41 UTC] No.45309173[source]▶
I suspect the very best engineers will be worth every penny of that $100k/yr and the amount of abuse will drop. There is the very real risk that companies will move to outsource more roles, but I will personally be boycotting them.
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vasilipupkin ◴[20 Sep 25 01:42 UTC] No.45309188[source]▶
very real risk ? it's a certainty not a risk.
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tnel77 ◴[20 Sep 25 01:43 UTC] No.45309212[source]▶
It isn’t?
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vasilipupkin ◴[20 Sep 25 01:47 UTC] No.45309268[source]▶
it isn't a risk, it is a certainty that companies will off shore more as a result of this.
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zerosizedweasle ◴[20 Sep 25 02:38 UTC] No.45309734{3}[source]▶
You think the US government will really allow that? You think they're gonna do this and then just let them outsource?
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1. karakot ◴[20 Sep 25 03:14 UTC] No.45309975{4}[source]▶
There is no way around it, you either outsource or lose (and they already outsourced almost all factories). Companies will move HQs to India and "outsource" some operations to the US.