When word got out about the Trump administration’s policy shift on H1B visas, current visa holders were on planes to travel out of the country and desperately insisted on getting off – concerned they might not be allowed back in. Companies were telling their successful H1B candidates to show up in the United States within 24 hours. It’s been chaos at airports.
A flight from US to India. People boarded the flight. Found out about the H1B news. Immediately disembarked fearing they won’t be allowed re-entry. Crazy pic.twitter.com/pgoSwK24UC
— Gabbar (@GabbbarSingh) September 20, 2025
Emirates out of San Francisco was delayed so passengers could get off.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. Due to the current circumstances obviously that are unprecedented for us at Emirates, we are aware that a number of passengers do not wish to travel with us, and that’s particularly fine.
Chaos in Emirates flight at SFO Airport. Delayed by 3 hours after many Indian H1B holders bound for India disembarked from the plane after hearing the news of $100K fees for H1B.
Many Indian passengers apparently left the aircraft after receiving calls from their employers not… pic.twitter.com/kZJG642RDz
— Drunk Journalist (@drunkJournalist) September 20, 2025
Here was Microsoft’s warning to employees:
I can imagine. pic.twitter.com/C6eHxQ08LI
— Aaliyah Briggs (@antiGOVTt) September 20, 2025
To foil Microsoft’s advice, for those trying to make it to the U.S. under the wire for the start of these fees, online activists tried to tie up remaining airline inventory for departing flights to block ticket purchases.
Frogposter has single handedly spiked the price by confusing the computer system to $6k for a flight pic.twitter.com/CT3YJRxuTE
— Callum (@AkkadSecretary) September 20, 2025
Skilled workers who follow the law are exactly whom the Trump administration has said that they want coming to the U.S.
While the H1B program itself doesn’t always perfectly align with its stated goals, we should want more bright minds from the rest of the world coming here, not fewer.
And the policy, as-announced, is unclear at best in terms of cost and frequency of payments or how broadly it applies. The administration has said it’s subject to discretion – they can exempt companies and industries – making it a scheme to reward favored supporters and punish opponents (cronyist industrial policy).
With unemployment running at 4.3%, these workers aren’t ‘taking American jobs’. In fact, research shows that a company that gains access to global talent through the H1B program wins. (HT: Marginal Revolution).
- Since there are only a limited number of 3-year H1B visas (renewable for a second 3 years), and demand exceeds supply, we can look at the performance of companies getting lucky securing H1B workers versus those trying to sponsor them but that aren’t selected.
- And winning the H1-B lottery makes a big difference in firm outcomes (which means firms can’t just hire U.S. workers and get the same outcomes). In fact, for 2,000 tech startups that are studied, one extra high-skilled worker increases the likelihood of a successful IPO within 5 years by 23%.
We find that a firm’s win rate in the H-1B visa lottery is strongly related to the firm’s outcomes over the following three years. Relative to ex ante similar firms that also applied for H-1B visas, firms with higher win rates in the lottery are more likely to receive additional external funding and have an IPO or be acquired. Firms with higher win rates also become more likely to secure funding from high-reputation VCs, and receive more patents and more patent citations. Overall, the results show that access to skilled foreign workers has a strong positive effect on firm-level measures of success.
The administration today clarified and walked back the fee slightly, stating that it won’t apply to existing H1B holders. Still, it’s a strategic gift to Canada.
And to be clear, the $100,000 H1B Visa fee is not legal. No law supports it and there’s been no administrative rulemaking. President Trump signed a proclamation announcing the fee, effective September 21, 2025.
- Fees for visas and immigration are set by Congress and agencies acting under laws passed by congress. No law gives the President or Department of Homeland Security discretion for this. There is explicitly a fee schedule for the H1B program that’s been set legally. And there’s no grounds for arguing that the $100,000 fee is related to the cost of the program. The executive branch can only set fees to recover costs under 8 U.S.C. § 1356(m).
- A shift in skilled immigration policy of this magnitude likely qualifies as a ‘major question’ that the Supreme Court has made clear falls under the purview of Congress (see broadly, West Virginia v. EPA and Biden v. Nebraska).
- If this is merely a rulemaking, though, it would have to follow the Administrative Procedures Act including notice nad comment (or outline how it’s exempt), avoid arbitrary and capricious decision making (tough for a suddent $100,000 fee) and stay within authority granted by statute (which this clearly is not).
At best the administration might argue that the President has broad authority under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) to “suspend the entry of any class of aliens” or impose restrictions on entry – but this is a visa program fee, not the suspension of entry or a restriction on entry and doing so in contravention to fees that have already been set in line with statute. Courts have upheld suspending entry (e.g. Trump v. Hawaii) and to require private health insurance proof (Doe v. Trump), but not to specify price of entry.
Like the tariffs that have lost in court in every decision so far and will go before the Supreme Court for oral argument in November (I’m predicting a 6-3 loss for the administration), this policy is probably illegal but will cause significant disruption before that’s finally adjudicated.
So… are these US companies and their billionaires going to start hiring and paying US citizens, or… are they just gonna continue laying off everyone, doing stock buybacks, and… oh, yeah… the latter.
Are we great yet!!?!?
No worries we will hire AI robots to replace you
The sad thing is H-1B workers are needed because American youngsters are taking drugs, not being proficient in math or science or even English literature.
American youngster should just roll up their sleeves and get polio and measles vaccines, study hard, major in a real field with a career, not a joke field, and learn math and science. H-1B workers should be picking strawberries, doing yard work, and installing roofs.
I’m surprised with this fascist regime that they didn’t dispatch ICE to the airports to detain anyone getting off the planes. felon47 wants his money, and holding those passengers hostage until they paid is totally in his MO.
Notice that he did not impose the same fee on the H 2b visa program.
In August 2025, it was reported that Mar-a-Lago was approved for up to 170 H-2B visas for the fiscal year. Records show this is the most requested by the club in the past decade.
Notice that there is no outrageous fee for the H 2b visa program.
In August 2025, it was reported that Mar-a-Lago was approved for up to 170 H-2B visas for the fiscal year. Records show this is the most requested by the club in the past decade.
“Passengers Flee Planes To Avoid Leaving U.S. Under Illegal And Counterproductive Policy”
Jeff – leave the legal opinions to the lawyers. It has not been determined (yet) that it is “illegal” for the Trump administration, as the head of the Executive Branch, to decide what costs a legal program (H-1B Visas) will have. The administration may very well have that authority. According to analysis by other attorneys, as they are not creating a new law, it is probably legal under existing law – despite being a rather extreme charge. Inevitably there will be lawsuits – let the process run its course before declaring it “illegal” or not.
And before we decry the loss of a supply of skilled labor – which this change could cause – the H-1B program is also taken advantage of, largely by tech companies, to hire “medium skilled” labor to replace American workers. Plenty of them are on social media, telling stories of being replaced by foreign workers on an H-1B visa.
Said imported labor – in the US without their family – has little chance to leave the job they are here for should working conditions, hours, or pay be “less than ideal” or below what is promised. H-1B workers cannot threaten to leave AMD to go work for Intel – the visa applies to a specific company. Additionally, getting fired would mean losing their H-1B and being deported. H-1B workers are forced to put up with their company, regardless of whether their pay, hours, or working conditions are not what was promised. Some H-1B workers in essence are treated like indentured servants. And some change to the program was long overdue.
@ Gary — Well, of course this is all legal. The criminals in charge said so.
Without remarking on this specific act or the actions of the President I can tell you, as someone with a 40 year IT career and degree in Computet Science, that the H1B program does hurt US citizens. Sure there are some roles it may make sense to import but typically H1B employees make less than a comparable US citizen and, trust me, there are plenty of bright US citizens graduating from our colleges with tech degrees.
Kinda neutral on this since definitely support hiring skilled US citizens over cheaper Indian nationals. Worked with a lot of Indian citizens and found them, as a rule, to be good people and employees but still taking away a job from a US citizen.
When will people get it? It’s very simple.
1) NO non-American should be permitted to work in America. Period. This is OUR country, and these are OUR jobs.
2) NO company in America should be allowed to sell any product not made in America from American materials. If it’s not made in America, we don’t want it.
3) NO visitor to America should be permitted to criticize America in any way. If you don’t like it, GET OUT.
Why do we need these visa workers? The US has more than enough gender and ethnic studies grads.
@derek — No, American ‘youngsters’ are not drug addicts, and they are smart, fully capable of these jobs; it’s that these greedy billionaires and their corporations would rather have these modern-day indentured-servants on metaphorical leashes (the visas tied to the company) who they can pay pennies on the dollar and over-work like dogs. Still, for those immigrants, they are relatively ‘lucky’ as even those lesser wages are far more than they’d typically make back home. Be real.
@Tom — Horrible take. None of that is practical, especially in the modern, globalized word that we, the USA, literally set up. Also, you’re suggesting we violate the US Constitution by limiting free speech; the Bill of Rights is part of what makes our country actually ‘great,’ lest we forget.
@Doug
Read what Tom says above. My brother is in the IT business and I got an earful from him on how the Indian mafia is exploiting this to the detriment of qualified American workers. Trump is right on this.
@Tom – “Autarky. It’s what MAGA craves…”
And, fellas, generally, you can try to make this about race, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, or any other identifier… doesn’t change the fact that no American company is significantly returning any manufacturing or product stateside yet… they’re literally just waiting #47 out… hoping to ‘stay low’ and not be ‘targeted’ by his goons… while these tariffs hurt their bottom lines. The only thing I see ever getting these billionaires in-line is to do it like Putin does in Russia… mafia style… open windows… not good. But, that’s what we’re starting to look like. Again, not my preference, and that kind of generalized corruption and cruelty only benefits the dictator, not the people.
@Tom, who made you the boss of America, you punk?
The problem is thinking of this as a zero sum game. One H-1b visa granted = one American job lost.
Reality is much more nuanced.
– Only 85,000 jobs per year. Removing these 85k H1B visas is not going to solve the jobs -unemployment – skill gap
– Many bright, skilled people start working in the US through H-1B but then go on to start companies that employ many many Americans and create wealth for employees and investors. Elon Musk, Eric Yuan (Zoom), Noubar Afeyan (Moderna), Mohit Aron (Nutanix), Sebastian Thrun (Udacity)… the list goes on.
– H-1B allows us to attract best and brightest from all over the world (not just India, as obvious from above list). This contributes to American exceptionalism and innovation.
Are there ways to improve the program… sure! But this 100k fee is just going to take away the junior level jobs. Students won’t spend 200k on an American degree if they can’t stay and work. UK, Europe, Australia will benefit. venture capital will move where the talent is and the next wave of companies will be founded. The whole ecosystem will be affected.
Anyone who agrees with this has never tried to hire for an advanced STEM position. Big difference in skill level!
And where are the ‘free market’ folks to explain the recent forced-sale of Intel to this government? Psh, between that, the overwhelming regulatory capture in many industries, as well as the outright monopolistic behavior in others… things are not looking great these days, especially not for the ‘little guy,’ the consumers, the small business owners, the farmers… like, yikes, guys… hope the stock market isn’t a bubble… boy, that’d be bad, too, eh?
Finally,
The American president unknowingly helps Canada.
Thanks. I guess…
liberals always think they are the smartest. Gary believes those who proposed this positive change to stop abuse of H1B visa are idiots.
Here are facts H1B visa just like B1/B2 tourist visa is heavily abused. Not only they overstay, many who come on H1B visas from India and pakistan are illiterates.
They work with rich indians in US and pay thousands to help obtain such visas and those visa applicants pay BANKS and COLLEGES bribes to get Bank balance document and college degree documents. They use those documents to obtain Visas at the US consulate in their home country. So many indians that work at 711 and gas stations and convenient stores enter the US on thsoe H1B visas.
liberals always think they are the smartest. Gary believes those who proposed this positive change to stop abuse of H1B visa are idiots.
Here are facts H1B visa just like B1/B2 tourist visa is heavily abused. Not only they overstay, many who come on H1B visas from India and pakistan are illiterates.
They work with rich indians in US and pay thousands to help obtain such visas and those visa applicants pay BANKS and COLLEGES bribes to get Bank balance document and college degree documents. In third world countries, you can get get anything including death certificates and can bribe any government officials to get what you want. They use those documents to obtain Visas at the US consulate in their home country. So many indians that work at 711 and gas stations and convenient stores enter the US on those H1B visas.
liberals always think they are the smartest. Gary believes those who proposed this positive change to stop abuse of H1B visa are idiots.
Here are facts H1B visa just like B1/B2 tourist visa is heavily abused. Not only they overstay, many who come on H1B visas from India and pakistan are illiterates.
They work with rich indians in US and pay thousands to help obtain such visas and those visa applicants pay BANKS and COLLEGES bribes to get Bank balance document and college degree documents. In third world countries, you can get get anything including death certificates and can bribe any government officials to get what you want. They use those documents to obtain Visas at the US consulate in their home country. So many indians that work at 711 and gas stations and convenient stores enter the US on those H1B visas.
@ Tom — I guess next all the black people who were forcibly brought here as slave labor and all of their descendants will need to go? You know, they are taking away OUR jobs, and all.
@Steve M. — You’re welcome, I guess, if this leads to the ‘best and brightest’ going there instead of here. However, your country also has to deal with apparent abuses of similar visa programs, as well as foreign investors buying up much of your real estate, at least in the major cities. (Mostly wealthy Chinese and Indians.) And, yet, you, like we, have the same relative affordability issues, a lack of high-paying jobs and housing in high-demand areas. Same in the UK, AU, etc. At least CA and the others have a more vibrant social safety net with actual universal healthcare, paid leave, and leaders who aren’t authoritarians. Nowhere is perfect. But, that’s sure seems nice. (Just a little cold, eh?)
@ Tom — Unless you are running your own company, these aren’t “YOUR” jobs. You sound like a typical psychophant, uneducated low-IQ fascist. Since you can’t succeed on your own, you need to blame all the smart, gay/female, brown people for your miserable existence.
America is an embarrassment.
@ 1990 — You HOPE the stockmarket isn’t a bubble. Please dont male me laugh. AI, Crypto, and Orange Guy are the biggest scam in world history. A little inveator named Charlie Munger called crypto “rat poison squared”…
The H1B visa program is supposed to be for workers with specialty skills or abilities. While I am pretty sure it is used for those workers, it probably has many H1B visa holders who have skills or abilities that are comparable to those of American citizens, especially those who have recently graduated with degrees in engineering and computer science. If more American citizens are needed with those skills, maybe colleges and universities need to attract more American citizens into high ranked education for those positions.
Having worked in the IT field on many projects for the last 35 years, this is without a doubt, the best thing to ever happen to the this career field.
Additionally, if I never hear another South Asian accent on a phone call, it still won’t be long enough. Please don’t let the door hit you on the a$$ on your way out.
@Doug
You hate him because you think he’s a fascist I hate him because he isn’t one. We are not the same.
@lavanderialarry
Only to commies.
I’m getting what I’m voting for and I’m damn happy. Everyday it’s another treat from president Trump. I can’t take all this winning.
@Steve M.
Canada being flooded with Indians is one of the reasons they are turning into a failed state.
The lefties angry about this make me laugh they would rather have some third worlders flood this nation and destroy wages and the American identity rather than admit that immigration has failed since 1965.
As usual, anything 1990 and Gene and the like are against, is clearly sound policy
Nelson Muntz ha-ha at the Emirates SFO situation
Well written article, Gary.
If he were truly interested in helping Americans and repatriating jobs, he would:
1. Ban all foreign call centers and chat farms.
2. Bring high speed internet to everywhere in the US lacking it.
3. Take those repatriated call centers and chat farm jobs and train Americans who need a job to do this work.
4. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs created quickly.
But it’s easier to make this about smart brown people coming to take a job from @Tom. That sells better on OAN and Newsmax.
wow…a lot of commenters clearly don’t know much about the H1B program, so here are some facts:
1. The company sponsoring the H1B visa has to PROVE that they can’t fill the position with US applicants, ie by publicly posting the position and showing that there are no qualified, local applicants.
2. The average H1B salary is $120k – these are not positions for US “youngsters” they are for qualified specialists with relevant experience..
3. The cost of the process for the employer is very high – lawyers, fees, relocation,…. They wouldnt do it, if they could easily find a local person.
4. The top H1B sponsors are Amazon, Google, Apple and other high tech companies. They all have operations abroad. So, this fee will NOT lead to US candidates being hired, but to the positions being moved abroad. And not only the leader/specialist position, but the 5-10 positions they lead/enable.
5. Yes, H1B visa holders earn less than comparable US citizen. That’s because they are not mobile and can’t switch jobs, as the sponsor has a hold on them. The visa is tied to the employer and often, they will sponsor a green card. If the H1B holder switches companies, they will loose the right to stay in the US and the green card process starts over…
So, this fee is not only illegal, but will also have the opposite effect from what is advertised: fewer desirable jobs for US citizen… and an even bigger compensation gap between H1B holders and US citizen – because there is even less chance of switching jobs…
The immigration and economic policies of this administration are plain incompatible… There is not a single example of a above average prosperous country that pursued “autarky” policies in the last 100 years…
Three words:
INCOMPETENT
BANANA
REPUBLIC
Three words:
INCOMPETENT
BANANA
REPUBLIC.
But every year he hires about one hundred H2B visa foreigners to work at Mar A Lago, instead of giving those jobs to people in West Palm Beach who could certainly fill them. Look it up
@Coolio — I understand you don’t like me (or Gene), personally, which is silly. But, are you for, or against this policy change? Like, I’m not even sure, myself. I’ve called out numerous things above, about the broken visa system, the abuse of it by greedy corporations, and the fragile nature of our economy, mostly due to this administration’s wild and inconsistent policies. Now, will charging $100,000 per year per visa make a difference? I have no idea. Seems like it’s just ‘red meat’ for bigots, like @Walter Barry (and yourself, it seems), and a major headache for folks who had to book quick flights back here if they were overseas visiting family or something. So, like with the tariffs, haphazard, spontaneous, and probably without any planning or thought for exactly what and how. This is no way to run a business, less a country. It seems you ‘voted’ for chaos.
@Ren – He needs those H2B’s since his buddy Ronnie Boy decided to run all the immigrants out of Florida. The self-inflicted labor shortages down here are real…thanks to their disdain for people just trying to make a living. ICE is everywhere, harassing everyone and they don’t care. You are an illegal until you prove otherwise.
He doesn’t care. They don’t care. The cruelty and fear are the point.
These are dark days for American values.
@Parker — It does seem so. The question is whether it’ll affect most people, or the people that ‘matter.’ Because, under our current system, since the abhorrent Citizens United decision, ‘money is speech,’ so the super-rich (and foreign adversaries, too) can spend unlimited amounts of dark money into our politics and media, mostly to foment distrust among ourselves and distract from their special interests getting more powerful and more funded. I loathe seeing the culture war nonsense overtake real issues of economics on here and at large. It’s a darn shame. Hope we emerge from this 2nd gilded age soon. A new progressive era is sorely needed.
Of course America needs the H-1Bs. How else would large corporations like Microsoft be able to fire 10% of their workforce and replace them at half the cost with illiterate subcontinentals who can’t do the jobs?
Also I’m glad the travel blogger is out here giving legal advice on complex administrative and constitutional law questions.
@John Doe — Is it really that complex, though? Fine, let’s play this out. Lawsuit. Federal judge says unconstitutional. Stay. Within weeks or months, like with the original ‘Muslim travel ban’ in 2017 (not my phrase, his), Supreme Court eventually says, well, he’s our guy, so whatever he says goes. Shadow docket. Jurisprudence be darned. That’s that. We have a dictator.
I work in IT and I can tell you that in fact they are taking American jobs. Some of them are very smart, excellent workers and have great English skills. Some of the are the very opposite.
I have no issue with the Visa fee. And I have no idea of why any company would tell them to show up to the airport early. Assuming the visa fee is paid, whether $10 or $100K, the work visa has been vetted and approved and any other documentation satisfied WTF would they need to show to a flight 24 hours out? You’re either admissible into the country based upon your documents or you’re not. If the work visa is granted why would that be anything different from when I showed up at LAX in July with a tourist visa for Australia?
Probably changes are illegal, but this is a program that has been abuse mightily. When US based workers have been laid off and the job postings are down for IT, then there is a real question of why American companies are trying to get out side help. One of the biggest things known, is they cost less over the years they employee H1B visa talent. Up front cost high, but pays them back over time.
The incel, goateed white guys in IT think they are worth more than they are. Americans want cheap products so need cheap labour. They will just off shore more.
All of these special needs poster’s faux outrage notwithstanding. tRUMP has made me a fortune so keep it up. RSU taxes could be cut more! Yes please.
Gary, according to the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal: Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella has said the company is increasingly looking to AI to perform coding and other tasks once done by people. Both Microsoft and Amazon laid off tons of folks in Seattle and this is where IT sector is going. They are now applying for barista jobs in local coffee shops….
Note that H1B is not for the top talent. For those there is still EB-1 – one can get visa even without a job offer in the USA and then there is EB-2. Not much talent will be lost by eliminating H1B all together.
Get these smelly turds out of here.
@Parker
ICE is awesome, I’m so glad the BBB increase their size to a gigantic level, I want these illegals to fear going outside. I want them gone.
I’m a former H1B (now a citizen). At the time (~2005) the legal process cost my company about $20k in legal fees, and $10k in other cost (travel, mostly, as I had to go to the US Embassy in Brussels due to the shorter wait time), and it took about 2 years. It’s never been an easy, or trivial process. Yes, some of the big outsource firms (Tata, HCL, etc) do abuse the system, but it’s FAR from easy to abuse. The allegation that illiterates are getting H1B’s is ridiculous – sure, they might not speak English very well, but that does not make them illiterate. H1B’s typically hire in at $120k+, so they are not ‘cheap labor’, especially with all the legal costs tagged on. This will just accelerate the brain drain from America.
The downside of an H1B is that it’s sponsored by your employer, so you’re beholden to them. If you get let go, you need to find another company to take over the sponsorship, so no, you don’t have H1B’s taking Barista jobs.
Gary’s article is well written, some of the comments here are woefully uninformed.
@ walter barry — Who’s gonna cut your grass and wipe your ass? Your Slovenian mail-order girfriend?
Good for Donald. Even if this is eventually found to be unconstitutional, it’s meant as a wake up call to Congress to address the rife abuse in the H1b system. I’m a teacher and I’ve personally seen former students unable to get jobs that their qualified for, but then magically that company hires an H1b foreigner. It happens like clockwork. True, not every situation is as rampant or fraudulent as that, and I am not attempting to overly generalize. However, what my former students have consistently experienced after college is enough to make me seriously question how the program is being run. Yes, these companies need to prove that they can’t get a US citizen to take the job, but how hard is that? Oh right, THEY LIE. And, there are minimal governmental checks on these companies to actually tell the truth.
Keep going, Donald. Continue trying to protect the American worker. By the way, low income workers’ wages are already rising under this administration. Why? By eliminating foreign competition, especially illegal competition, employers must pay more to get the best workers. That’s how it should be, with the most economically vulnerable in society having a better chance of making it, of surviving. Isn’t that something that we should all want?
@1990 – lawsuit: some federal judge with a star wars name who first set foot in America last year says it’s illegal due to either some AI delusion they didn’t bother removing the prompt from before publishing or their feelings. An appeals court (also made up of Star Wars names who have a vested interest in the ethnic replacement of Americans) agrees. The Supreme Court writes an 8-1 opinion again reminding the lower courts that “Orange Man Bad” is not a legal argument.
@walter barry – I hope you get EVERYTHING you wish for. Folks like you seem to have absolutely no understanding of how the labor force works in America and who actually does the work. I think it would be amazing for you to live in a world full of only people who think like you. Then, you can scrub your own toilet, mow your own lawn and take care of your own snot-nose entitled little brats while you pay 50% for everything in order to find people willing to do the work you don’t.
@1900 – I hate that we’re here. I come from a family that has defended our constitution in three different wars. I am deeply proud to be an American. I deeply believe in the American dream.
THAT SAID, I was raised that I have a moral obligation to. Look out for people who don’t have a voice and to speak truth to power.
So, here we are. I hate this level of animosity in our country, but I’m not gonna stand back and do nothing while so-called patriots undermine our Constitution and our values.
@Gene — Booyakasha! Slam-dunk!
@Parker — I still think @Walter Barry is literally on the Kremlin payroll. He is yet to say anything relevant about travel, airlines, hotels, credit cards; he just comes on here to spew hate. At least some of the other regulars, like @Mantis, admits he’s based in Asia (probably a pro-CCP troll). Anyone remember @Andy S, yeah, that guy was just anti-DEI, nothing more, nothing less. Disinfo-agents, seeking to divide us at home.
@John Doe — “It’s a trap!” I think you meant 6-3. Wait, so you don’t like Star Wars now? I thought it was my ‘side’ that was supposed to be ending our Disney+ subscriptions. You might wanna watch Andor season 2… ah, nevermind, you’d probably side with the Empire. “Un…limited POWAA!!”
For what it’s worth, I’ve sponsored H1Bs, TNs, O1s and green cards. I have 25 years experience at this. In every case, it was a tool for bringing in the right person for the job not to hire for a job where people were interchangeable and it was somehow a way to pay less. Definitely too much of a hassle for that, and the costs associated with it offset any savings even if it were outside of some niche scenerios that surely exist (but remember, most employers are seeking ‘capped’ H1Bs so there’s a lot more demand than slots and this isn’t having a material affect on the U.S. labor market).
@Parker—thanks for your intelligent and thoughtful comments. I enjoy reading them and agree with you 100 percent.
Apparently VFTW missed the WSJ story about all the newly minted college grads with CompSci degrees who are working at Starbucks because they can’t get tech jobs. Or the 40-60 year olds who were laid off in one of dozens of downsizings and can’t find jobs because firms want to hire cheaper talent.
The H1B program is a massive fraud perpetrated on the American people to replace US workers with cheaper imported talent. I can’t predict whether the $100k fee will be upheld by the Courts, but we need to make it more costly for firms to import cheap workers in place of qualified US workers who are unemployed.
@Boraxo — they can’t get tech jobs because they are retarded. Nothing to do with any visa program.
Parker
Yes
Yes
Yes
1. Ban all foreign call centers and chat farms.
Why is there not talk about these jobs.
Paul Krugman’s view, in a post titled ” Hey, Let’s Undermine America’s Technology, Education and Research!”
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/hey-lets-undermine-americas-technology
Late to this party and I see greater minds have debunked the cheap-IT-but-skilled labor talking points. It’s mostly Indians because they are openly racist once they become hiring managers hence how they rise up through the ranks to CEO so quickly. White guilters ignore it because if 1% of whites were slaveowners, then 100% feel guilt but if 99% of H-1bs are crooks, then we are supposed to see all of them as like the 1% that are skilled and decent.
I’m done with that, thank you.
Guys, 4chan apparently had a “operation clog the toilet” to hold tickets from India in shopping carts in order to raise the price for panicked H-1bs to return.
IT Tech “AI” layoffs have been massive but yet they open up jobs for entry level workers from India showing that it’s just an excuse to discriminate (illegally) against Americans. Cry me a river they had to overpay for a ticket to come home. They have ZERO empathy for the Americans they wish to live amongst.
As someone in the technology business, Trump is right on one account. Companies are abusing H1B. The goal initially was to use the program to source talent not readily available in US.
It morphed into displacing qualified American high cost labor and replacing it with cheaper foreign labor from India.
You can dislike Trump but this is a what a lot of companies are doing.
@Mets Fan in NC – there may be abuses in the program, but overall it works, and the ‘abuses’ in no way justify undermining it like this. That’s an absolute own-goal.
See https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/new-us-curb-high-skill-immigrant-workers-ignores-evidence-its-likely
“From 1990 to 2010, rising numbers of H-1B holders caused 30–50 percent of all productivity growth in the US economy. This means that the jobs and wages of most Americans depend in some measure on these workers.
The specialized workers who enter on this visa fuel high-tech, high-growth sectors of the 21st century economy with skills like computer programming, engineering, medicine, basic science, and financial analysis. Growth in those sectors sparks demand for construction, food services, child care, and a constellation of other goods and services. That creates employment opportunities for native workers in all sectors and at all levels of education.
This is not from a textbook narrative or a computer model. It is what happened in the real world following past, large changes in H-1B visa restrictions. For example, Congress tripled the annual limit on H-1B visas after 1998, then slashed it by 56 percent after 2004. That produced large, sudden shocks to the number of these workers in some US cities relative to others. Economists traced what happened to various economic indicators in the most-affected cities versus the least-affected but otherwise similar cities. The best research exhaustively ruled out other, confounding forces.
That’s how we know that workers on H-1B visas cause dynamism and opportunity for natives. They cause more patenting of new inventions, ideas that create new products and even new industries. They cause entrepreneurs to found more (and more successful) high-growth startup firms. The resulting productivity growth causes more higher-paying jobs for native workers, both with and without a college education, across all sectors. American firms able to hire more H-1B workers grow more, generating far more jobs inside and outside the firm than the foreign workers take.
An important, rigorous new study found the firms that win a government lottery allowing them to hire H-1B workers produce 27 percent more than otherwise-identical firms that don’t win, employing more immigrants but no fewer US natives—thus expanding the economy outside their own walls. So, when an influx of H-1B workers raised a US city’s share of foreign tech workers by 1 percentage point during 1990–2010, that caused7 percent to 8 percent higher wages for college-educated workers and 3 percent to 4 percent higher wages for workers without any college education.”