According to CTV, Trump announced a new fee of up to $100,000 on H-1B visas last Friday. As soon as the news came out, the market immediately followed turmoil, and U.S. technology stocks fell on the spot.
On the surface, it’s business and Wall Street, but it’s really shocked, and it’s the ordinary worker who rely on H-1B in the U.S. — engineers, programmers, and their families.
The direct shock wave of this policy spread rapidly, causing panic. Over the past weekend, several major airports around the world fell into chaos and many H-1B holders had to return within 48 hours.
A nightmare under the new rules.
According to the description of Chinese netizen A on social platforms, she just experienced a "nightmare" journey back to the United States-40 of the 48-hour journey was on the plane.
Netizen A had arranged an important trip back home: not only as a young girlfriend, but also for the first time after adulthood to take her mother abroad, all hotels, air tickets and landing services have been booked in advance.
However, all these plans were completely disrupted by a sudden visa policy.
Netizen A, who was just lying in a South Korean hotel for an hour, noticed the news: U.S. visa policy has muted. She collapsed at the scene, but only forced to calm down in ten minutes, then bought the first direct flight ticket to New York.
Due to the shortage of time, netizen A must arrive at the customs before the early morning of September 21st, and he may miss the deadline one minute late. As soon as the plane landed, she rushed to the customs, and had no time to think about the next consequences.
It was not easy to rush back to New York, but the customs were already crowded, and the ranks could not see the end, at least waiting for a few hours to get out.
She quipped that the front was to catch a plane, and the back was to block the customs. This trip was simply linked and exhausted, which made people exhausted.
Despite the netizen A's efforts to maintain the calm response, there is still a sense of powerlessness "like being choked and having to swallow" in the heart, indicating that he has never experienced such a depressing situation.
Netizen A thinks that the most depressing thing is that there is no room for joking about tragedies, and I feel that the whole order is collapsing. It's simply Calvino's "Black Sheep Effect". "Once theft and oppression become the default rules, anyone may be hurt in the end, and the most disciplined people often suffer the most and are least sympathetic."
Flight ticket: H-1B Spring flight scene
Meanwhile, netizen B was witnessing the collective robbery of tickets.
Netizen B is accustomed to brushing HKG-SFO’s UA878 flight schedule as he has been waiting for an ascension opportunity. In the first few days, the situation was regular: there were a lot of passengers in business cars and supereconomic classes, but the economy class was basically empty.
But just the day after the United States announced the new H-1B regulations, he was stunned when he brushed the seat map again-the originally empty economy class was actually full on the flight that arrived in San Francisco on the evening of September 20th.
The conversion time exactly corresponds to 23:10 EST, which is the last 50 minutes before the policy deadline.
Several people got off the plane helplessly
If the experience of netizen A and netizen B shows the individual's panic and powerlessness under the policy raid, then at San Francisco Airport, a group of people fell into panic at the same time, and the scene was in chaos.
Netizen C said that the passengers of the Emirates airline at the time were confused in the plane. Someone dragged the luggage around to hear the news, someone stood there and repeatedly called to confirm the situation.
Especially Indian passengers, as they are the largest group of H-1B holders, identity and future immigrants are bound on this visa.
Therefore, they are particularly worried that if they really get off the plane and enter the country, there will be problems with their subsequent green cards or visas. Many people simply stop and hesitate whether to get off the plane or turn around and return directly.
Indeed, this policy has forced countless people to return to the United States in an emergency from around the world within a day. Some have not even been able to pack their luggage and have not been able to say goodbye to their families. This global "emergency big escape" has become the new policy's most intuitive picture.
Workers are the most injured
As soon as this policy came out, the comment area was in full swing. Some people thought it was a good thing to protect local employment, while others criticized the policy as too extreme or even unfair.
Netizen D said: "I have seen that the whole technical department is Indian, but local computer graduates can't find jobs. This is not advanced programming, or ordinary code farm work. H-1B is simply abused to lower wages. In the final analysis, it is not necessarily Trump's achievements, but more like a tool to collect money or control companies."
Netizen E analysis: "In the past decade or so, Indians have been exploiting the loopholes of H-1B, increasing the winning rate by one person and multiple votes. It was not until these two years that USCIS discovered this loophole and changed it to the point that everyone could only submit an application from one legal employer."
Netizen E continued to add: Trump's new policy stipulates that from 12:01 a.m. on September 21st, enterprises need to pay $100,000 per year for each H-1B employee. Due to the vague wording, H-1B holders abroad were once frightened, and some people even worried that "family members could enter the country, but they were blocked". Although there was a clarification from USCIS later, the panic has been created.
He also cried out that this policy was completely unrealistic for universities and institutes such as non-profit institutions – researchers earning $780,000 a year, but demanding companies to diplomate $100,000 for them – and also indicated that the policy did not take into account the actual situation.
H-1B price increases, gold card debuts
Looking back at the new regulation, the core requirement is clear: Enterprises must pay an additional $100,000 per year to apply for a H-1B work visa for their employees.
For U.S. companies: the cost of hiring increases sharply, and the willingness to recruit overseas talent inevitably decreases.
For individual applicants: the visa threshold is further raised, and many may be blocked directly outside the U.S.
For Indian IT companies and programmers: As the largest group of H-1B applicants, it’s almost like being stuck to death.
However, USCIS subsequently clarified that the new regulation does not retroactively affect holders of H-1B visas that have already been approved, nor their families, which means that groups that have long legally held visas, live and work in the United States do not have to pay this extra fee.
This explanation somewhat eased some panic, but for many who are abroad and rushing back to beauty, the feelings of fatigue and anxiety are inevitable.
In addition, Trump signed an executive order on September 19 and officially launched a $1 million “golden card” visa scheme: individuals donate at least $1 million to the U.S. Department of Commerce to get a green card through the quick channel, while corporate guarantees donate $2 million.
It is expected that 80,000 sheets will be issued with a review fee of $15,000.
In fact, this shows that either high-net-value people are paying for their identity to come to the United States, or they themselves are U.S. citizens or green card holders; and the path to technologically-working immigrants is almost completely blocked.
In the long run, the talent pattern in the U.S. could be two-polar: the wealthy group entered through a “golden card” and local workers filled jobs, while the Indian IT talent and other foreign technicians that rely on H-1B were blocked.
This not only weakens U.S. competitiveness in technology and finance, but may also accelerate the flow of talent to more open countries such as Canada.
Opportunities and Problems in Canada
The U.S. is tightening H-1B visas, and a short-term chain response is likely to affect Canada.
On the one hand, engineers, programmers, and researchers who intend to go to the United States may turn to Canada, which is a hard-to-do talent for local.
But, on the other hand, large numbers of immigrants concentrated in major cities such as Toronto and Vancouver could cause worse job competition, housing prices and living costs to rise further, and locals to worry about the quality and lifestyle of new immigrants.
In addition, Canada's salaries and industry size are not as large as the U.S., and some high-end talents may just take this place as a "hopper" or transit station, not necessarily willing to stay for a long time.