The new H-1B visa rule, signed by US President Trump recently, has unprecedentedly raised the application fee to $100,000. The new rule greatly raised the money threshold for overseas talent to work in the United States, and radically changed the logic of screening for talent, triggering a shock in the science and technology community. Wang Yiyuan, director of the Institute for International Affairs at the People's University of China, pointed out that the Trump administration's persistence in "identity identity" and "financial gain" is destined to sacrifice America's global competitiveness.
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A sky-high executive order completely rewrote the admission rules of the "American Dream".
America isThe PresidentTrump isRecently, the new H-1B visa regulations signed have increased the application fee to $100,000 in an unprecedented way.
After the release of the new rules, the technology community immediately fell into panic due to suspicion about the interpretation of the policy. A Tesla employee told the Daily Economic News reporter (hereinafter referred to as each reporter), the company demands the immediate return of employees outside the United States; the United States Samsung also sent several notifications emails and organized special policy interpretation meetings, enough to see the shock and anxiety inside the company.
According to the White House announcement, this huge fee of $100,000 is a one-time fee, which is applicable to new H-1B visa applications submitted after September 21st, which is nearly 50 times higher than the previous usual fee of $2,000 to $5,000.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also announced the proposed rules, H-1B visas will introduce a "weighted lottery" system: the higher the wages, the greater the probability of signing.
This means,The new H-1B visa regulations will not only raise the money threshold, but also change the screening logic of overseas talents in the United States.
$100,000 ticket for next generation Musk
H-1B visas have long been referred to as the “golden ticket to work in the United States” since the Immigration Act in 1990 was established, and under the current system, the number of seats per fiscal year is limited to 65,000 and another 20,000 is available exclusively for applicants with a master’s degree or higher in the United States.
Many successful U.S. tech executives and founders first entered the U.S. with a H-1B visa. For example, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet in India, and Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, worked legally with H-1B in U.S. technology companies and eventually became industry executives. In 1995, Musk entered the U.S. as an exchange visitor to scholars, then switched to a H-1B work visa, setting the foundation in Silicon Valley.
Critics worry that,The U.S. may be closing the doors to the next generation of Pichai, Nadella, and Musk.An immigration lawyer said: “Without H-1B, the American Dream would only remain in myth.”
Paridhi Upadhaya, an 18-year-old Indian student, had to be urgently cancelled by her family after receiving a U.S. Computer Science Scholarship, and her plan to travel to the U.S. was regretted:We can’t bear such uncertainty, and the American Dream becomes unattainable.”
Who will pay for the visa fee?
The new H-1B visa regulations will impact a number of key groups in the U.S. economy and research sectors, ranging from small start-ups in Silicon Valley to tech giants, from IT services companies in India to universities and research institutions in the U.S., facing huge operational and financial challenges.
Start-up enterprises: Innovative fires are “suckled” by the sky price
The impact of the new regulation is deadly for startups with fewer employees and cash-flow tensions.A National Policy Foundation 2022 report found that more than half of US startups valued at more than $1 billion had at least one immigrant founder.
Deedy Das, a partner of venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, warned, “The $100,000 visa fee is too expensive for small companies with less than 25 employees.” AI start-up Iterate co-founder and chief technology officer Brian Sathianathan said that such high visa fees made their overseas recruitment plans impossible at all, as it did to stifle the innovation model they rely on a handful of elite engineers.
● India's IT services giant: Core profit cut
Indian IT services companies are the main users of H-1B visas. Data shows that in 2024, among the top ten companies with the number of approved H-1B visas in the United States, there are three Indian IT service companies, namely Tata Consulting Services (Tata), Infosys (Infosys), and Wipro). Analyst estimates,For the three Indian IT giants, the visa fee could result in their core operating profits being cut by between 7% and 15%.Forcing them to change long-standing business models.
● Silicon Valley technology giants: There is a fault in the talent echelon
Silicon Valley tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google have been relying on H-1B visas to hire foreign employees such as software development engineers.
According to data from business trading platform DesignRush, about 550,000 of the 85,000 new H-1B visas issued each year are computer-related.Previously, visa costs for hiring these employees ranged from $200 million to $400 million, but according to the new fee standards, the tech industry will cost $5.5 billion annually for hiring H-1B technical staff.This could force tech companies to shift their recruitment focus from emerging talent to “immediately profitable” senior talent, resulting in a breakdown in the talent ladder in Silicon Valley and undermining long-term innovation capabilities.
●U.S. Colleges and Research Institutions: Talent Training Threatened
The new regulations also put heavy pressure on American universities and scientific research institutions. According to reports, from Ivy League schools to state universities and dozens of medical schools, thousands of H-1B visas are applied every year to recruit researchers and faculty.An additional $100,000 per person in visa budget expenditure will rapidly devour research funding, potentially forcing universities to reduce the number of recruits of foreign teachers and researchers, directly affecting laboratory project personnel allocation and research strength.Foreign media pointed out that the visa change will increase the financial burden on the university system.In the past, the international talent training and research power of American universities will be threatened.
“We are worried that it will become more difficult to work in the United States in the future."A doctoral student at Georgia Institute of Technology told every reporter bluntly. He said that in order to deal with students' doubts, the school has invited lawyers to hold lectures for international students to answer questions. "It is not excluded that the school has sent separate emails to faculty and staff holding H1B visas, but doctoral students have not received such notices yet."
He also learned that at present, many American universities have reminded faculty and staff by email to avoid unnecessary international travel as much as possible to cope with potential policy adjustments.
Chain reaction: US companies accelerate outsourcing, and Canada actively "grab people"
Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs of Renmin University of China, said in an interview with every reporter,Trump isOne of the core logics of the government's implementation of the new visa regulations is to respond to the anxiety of traditional American subject groups about "identity loss".In addition, the new visa regulation also hides direct economic interest considerations to ease the increasing fiscal pressure on the United States with “high visa fees.”
The king explained,Trump isThe benefits of tariff policy have not met expectations, the fiscal hole has continued to expand, and debt sustainability has become an urgent problem to be solved.For the U.S. government, this is both a “variant tax on foreign talents taking over U.S. resources” and a convenient way to fill the fiscal gap.
The king said,Trump isThe government's obsession with "identity" and "fiscal benefits" is doomed to sacrifice the global competitiveness of the United States.
In fact, new visa regulations are suppressing innovation and leading to an accelerated flow of highly skilled jobs overseas.
“We may have to reduce the number of H-1B visa employees,” said Sam Liang, co-founder and CEO of AI Conference Intelligence startup Otter.ai, “the company may have to outsource some of its employees – such as recruitment in India or elsewhere.”
Jack Thorogood, CEO and founder of payroll firm Native Teams, said the number of U.S. companies seeking visa-free global hiring options, such as international remote work, increased by 50% following the release of new H-1B visa rules. He believes that,U.S. startups will start outsourcing talents or leave their employees overseas.
Native Teams works with more than 3,000 companies in 85 countries or regions.Now hiring one H-1B employee is equivalent to hiring 20 people remotely in many other countries.
Meanwhile, other countries are also seizing the opportunity and the U.S. is “robbing people.” said Dave McKay, chief executive of the Royal Bank of Canada.The new H-1B visa regulation is a “major opportunity” for Canada to attract more tech talent.He said Canada should take this opportunity to accelerate growth in its innovation field.
“So people from India, South Asia or Europe would say, ‘Well, I can’t go to the United States, but I want to move to North America — I’ll come to Canada,’” McKay said.
According to media reports, Accenture has planned to set up a new campus in Andhra Pradesh in southern India and eventually create about 12,000 new jobs in the country.
For the new H-1B visa regulations, there are constant doubts in the United States.On September 24, local time, the California Attorney General’s Office confirmed that California was considering filing lawsuits against the new H-1B visa rules.The reason is that federal immigration laws only allow charges that are consistent with administrative costs, while $100,000 is clearly lacking in legal basis and is “arbitrary and excessive” for new charges.
At the same time, the American Medical Association (AMA) has warned that the $100,000 fee will "destroy" international doctors into the channel, as about one-fifth of U.S. primary healthcare doctors come from overseas training and their ban on entry will exacerbate the domestic shortage of medical resources. The American Hospital Association also noted that H-1B visas are critical for recruiting highly skilled doctors in U.S. hospitals and has called on the government to exempt healthcare workers from this increase in fees.
The visa fee of $100,000 makes the threshold of the "American Dream" higher than ever before. It tries to screen talents with economic leverage, but it may push the next generation of "Pichai" and "Nadella" overseas.