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A comment on Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas.

Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by SilverElfin on Friday September 19, 2025 @02:17PM (#45304732)
Doesn’t this just mean less talent? Companies would hire locally if equal level talent was available. I doubt it’s really about saving money when these jobs earn a lot of revenue per employee. Adding this fee means companies may just not find anyone worth hiring. It would make more sense to require H1B salary to be equal to the highest paid local employee of the same role at that company than to just throw an arbitrary $100K fee on.
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Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by jltsiren on Friday September 19, 2025 @03:57PM (#45305831)
I think it will mostly impact cap-exempt employers. For example, universities typically use H-1B for new faculty hires, as the visa is available quickly and without too much effort. But if the visa costs $100k, the university will probably skip international applicants, because the hiring department rarely has that much money it is allowed to use freely.

Research universities could probably use O-1, as the requirements for O-1A are lower than the bar for getting a tenure-track position. So they would effectively pay $10k to a lawyer rather than $100k to the government.

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Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by ribit on Saturday September 20, 2025 @01:26AM (#45310648)
Yep. My wife just started as a professor (humanities) and she entered on H1B visa last week, as green card takes years to obtain. I have been offered a teaching job at the same institution as a partner hire and they have filed an H1B petition for me.

Unless they clarify that education is exempt from these rules, my wife will surely have to quit her new job. She is supposed to go on fieldwork later this year and she won’t be able to re-enter. Not to mention I can kiss my lecturer offer good bye. This is an incredibly retarded situation.

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Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by toomuchtodo on Friday September 19, 2025 @03:41PM (#45305623)
> Doesn’t this just mean less talent? Companies would hire locally if equal level talent was available. I doubt it’s really about saving money when these jobs earn a lot of revenue per employee. Adding this fee means companies may just not find anyone worth hiring.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45224057

Your reply to my comment there:

(me) ... I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs ...

(you) They already do though. Do you own any items made in other countries? If so, you’re competing with other workers already. It seems weird to focus on immigrants workers in America versus citizens in America while importation is allowed at all. I find all of this also very much in conflict with HN’s anti tariff attitude.

So, you seem to understand the problem. This is not about lack of domestic US talent. This is about disempowering US corporations from importing unnecessary labor to disadvantage US workers (who are currently facing an unfavorable domestic labor market).

Corporations are trying to hide job openings from US citizens - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45223719 - September 2025 (526 comments)

H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-h1b-visa-middlemen-c... | https://archive.today/7JX9A - June 27th, 2025

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42454509 (citations)

(i support this surcharge, even if not most optimal from a policy perspective, based on the evidence)

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Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by x0x0 on Friday September 19, 2025 @03:06PM (#45305214)
I don't think you can possibly argue, in good faith, that in the midst of the tech recession there isn't plenty of local talent available. If you're actually paying decently, and probably even if not.
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Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by slaw on Friday September 19, 2025 @02:26PM (#45304825)
Local talent is available and looking for a work. Companies want cheap H1B workers.
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Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by esalman on Friday September 19, 2025 @06:29PM (#45307512)
Yes it means less talent.

Want proof? Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella were all on H1B visa at some point.

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Re:Trump to Add New $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas by Saline9515 on Friday September 19, 2025 @07:09PM (#45307883)
If you believe in the laws of supply and demand, it means lower wages for local workers, as they have to compete with foreign competitors. In the long term, lower incentives for local workers to get into the sectors hiring H1Bs. Those sectors will then complain about the lack of local workers and ask for more H1bs.
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