A White House announcement on H-1B visas shaken large and international student groups.
The core idea of the announcement is that employers must obtain and retain documents proving that they have paid $100,000 before filing an H-1B application for an expat outside the United States, or they will not be able to enter the country.
First Finance learned from several U.S. colleges and tech factory employees that the company's human resources (HR) department sent emergency emails to employees after 22:00 local time on the 19th, asking international employees not to leave the United States.
“H-1B travel ban”
An American university employee told China Business News that HR said in an email: "Earlier tonight, the White House issued a presidential proclamation restricting H-1B employees from entering the United States. We are carefully reviewing and waiting for further official guidance. A well-known law firm has made the following suggestions: At present, we strongly recommend H-1B visa holders not to leave the United States. Once you leave the country, it may seriously affect your ability to apply for a visa again and re-enter the United States. If you are currently outside the United States and have an H-1B visa, we strongly recommend that you always return to the United States by midnight on Sunday, September 21, 2025. We will provide more details as soon as further guidance becomes available. "
In addition, employees of a major technology company also expressed similar views on China Business News, saying that their company's HR also sent an email to employees around 9 o'clock that night, asking H-1B visa holders not to leave the United States.
For a long time, the H-1B system has been controversial, with some employers replacing U.S. workers with foreign workers, especially low- or medium-low-paying technical jobs, lowering wages and reducing costs. There are analysts who believe that foreign applicants can directly control the flow of "new entry" labor without affecting H-1B employees already working in the U.S.
However, many H-1B visa holders who have already worked in the U.S. are also concerned. One H-1B visa holder said to the first financial report: “This is actually a ‘H-1B travel ban.’ If a visa holder re-enters the U.S. after leaving the U.S., it is likely that each employer will have to pay $100,000 each time. The H-1B visa for Chinese expires once a year, and if you have been in the U.S. without going out, you don’t have to enter the U.S. from abroad, and the employer doesn’t have to pay $100,000, but if you want to travel, travel or visit family, you need to re-entry a visa annually, and you have to pay $100,000 when entering.”
A Chinese and international student group working in the U.S. instantly exploded the pot. A visitor who visited his family home said: “We urgently signed up today’s flight, hoping to catch up with the last direct flight to the U.S. before $100,000 comes into effect.”
Due to the sudden incident, some netizens said, "Book a flight to Hawaii first, get back to the United States as soon as possible, and then find a way to connect." According to the data, if you fly from Shanghai to the United States, the nearest American territorial state is Hawaii.
A reporter from China Business News also observed that in just a few hours, the price of the flight from Shanghai to Hawaii (Honolulu) on September 20, which was originally only priced at four or five thousand yuan, has increased by several thousand yuan.
According to reporters, theoretically, according to the current announcement, new applicants for H-1B visas outside the U.S. without paying $100,000 may not be able to enter the U.S. even if they hold a H-1B visa. At the same time, $100,000 is generally required to be paid by employers, not individuals. But because the announcement is sudden and the details are still to be interpreted, the current U.S. employers are not quick to react to this.
Could it be rejected?
According to insiders, the Trump administration has previously planned to abolish the H-1B visa lottery system by adopting a salary-based screening process. The new system will prioritize higher-paying jobs during visa screening. That’s why H-1B visas have repeatedly become Trump’s “victims”, one of the reasons may be that H-1B visa holders don’t have the right to vote, and therefore will not have an impact on the election. Under the “America’s Priority” claim, fighting H-1B visas or being seen as a positive initiative by some Republican supporters.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant U.S. work visa that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specific professional fields, usually requiring applicants to have at least a bachelor's degree or equivalent. Usually initially approved for 3 years, can be renewed once (totally up to 6 years). If you apply for a green card, it can be extended further. The prerequisite for obtaining a H-1B visa must be to find a company or institution willing to guarantee for employees, and individuals can not apply on their own. Employers need to submit an H-1B application to the U.S. Immigration Office (USCIS), but this is just the start, because the demand far exceeds the majority of applications to first pass the annual H-1B lottery, with a quota of about 85,000 per year,
The "main force" of H-1B is highly concentrated in a few countries and regions, especially in IT industry talent exporting countries. Among them, India accounts for the absolute majority, accounting for 70%-75% (mainly software engineers, programmers, IT consultants); Followed by China, accounting for 10%-15%, mainly in scientific research, finance, education and some IT fields; Others include: Canada, South Korea, Philippines, Britain, etc. According to USCIS data, Indian and Chinese applicants account for almost more than 90% of H-1B visas.
Some immigration lawyers told First Finance that the announcement could also be rejected soon.
The reason is that according to the current Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the U.S. Immigration Service and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have the right to set and adjust immigration application fees through legal procedures. Historically, H-1B fees include basic application fees, ACWIA training fees, anti-fraud fees, and additional surcharges paid by some employers, which are in the order of several thousand dollars in total. Charging a $100,000 application fee would be a huge leap in an order of magnitude, far beyond the "cost recovery" logic and more like a "restrictive" policy. The president can indeed require DHS/USCIS to adjust policies by executive order, but the creation of fees must go through the rulemaking process set out under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). If the application fee of $100,000 is directly charged simply through an administrative order, it is likely to be questioned as exceeding the legal authorization.