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Posted on 09/24/2026 11:22:13 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Clash over proposed DHS rule to charge $103,265 fee reignites spat over highly skilled immigration
WASHINGTON—An industry group representing the country’s largest tech companies is urging the Trump administration to withdraw its proposal to charge companies $103,265 for most new H-1B visa applications, reigniting a fight between the White House and Silicon Valley over a popular program for highly skilled immigrants.
The sector’s opposition, filed Thursday as a public comment on the Department of Homeland Security’s pending H-1B fee rule, is significant because tech companies—which consistently oppose tightening access to immigration paths—have almost uniformly supported President Trump’s policies of minimal regulation and tax cuts. DHS proposed the new $103,265 fee last month.
Hoping to force companies to hire American workers, the Trump administration has taken unprecedented steps to restrict legal immigration avenues, especially those that allow international students to remain in the U.S. for work and eventually become citizens.
That is a concern for tech giants such as Apple, Amazon.com, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook operator Meta Platforms because they often struggle to find the skilled workers they need and say there isn’t adequate talent currently in the U.S. for many specialized roles.
TechNet, which filed the public comment, represents the biggest internet platforms as well as leading artificial-intelligence companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, and said the policy could set the U.S. back in the AI race against China.
“This proposal undermines the president’s championing of American global...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
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They ain't "highly skilled."
I have worked with a lot of H-1Bs, and I agree.
Avoid the fee!!
Hire Americans!!
Pretty easy!!
Yeah. I’ve read how these companies game the system. By law they must first advertise they have an opening for a programmer or whatever, but the salary they will list would be really, really low. And since no one is interested in slave wages, the company says “well, we tried”. This now allows them to seek H1B visa entrants and pay them slave wages.
“Did I hear you right? You want me to double it?”
Wonder if he'll cave to the tech industry? Ellison (TikTok) and Musk (X) both have Trump's ear.
Amen. And often, the work product of those ‘highly skilled H1bs’ has to be fixed by someone more competent, often on the down low and never compensated for.
I call on Trump to double the H1B visa fee.
More ICE please!
Ditto on that - of the hundreds I’ve worked with less than a handful were even adequate, 1 was exemplary. Good, fast & cheap…they might be cheap but they’re neither good or fast. Management loved them tho bc they ticked cheap box.
Some middle manager gets a bonus for looking good on the budget sheets, either moving on before the ensuing wreckage, or applies pressure and/or does a juggling act.
I think we have enough Indians.
The cat has been out of the bag on the H1-B visa system for a long time now.
The one thing it has never done is provide “highly skilled” technical workers that don’t exist in the US labor market.
What it HAS done is destroy the bargaining power, influence, and economic prospects of American coders and engineers.
At some point, you have to accept that the purpose of a policy is the thing that policy achieves.
Myself, I’d like to see the entire program scrapped in its entirety. But that would require congress to act, and they’re just not going to do that.
So, second best are these EO’s, chipping away where they can. It’s far from perfect, but it’s better than nothing.
$100k is a small price to pay extra for a few years of India's top AI researcher. It will price a beginner JavaScript website programmer out of the market, which is a good thing.
They could start be hiring me! God forbid any of them hire a 61 year old with 40 years of experience.
-SB
I spend half my time fixing the shit they broke.
...”popular program for highly skilled immigrants”
Americans first. No more curry in the office microwaves.
We have brought in 12 million Indians, over the last 20 years, to take our jobs. And the elephant in the room is, they never leave. The government does not track if they leave. It is a great migration. It is the modern form of colonialism.
“What it HAS done is destroy the bargaining power, influence, and economic prospects of American coders and engineers.”
Amen. American engineers got the shaft while their employers got richer off cheap foreign labor.
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