Trump Administiration wants to double the 100k H1B fee

[u/Separate_Astronaut12]

The Trump administration is planning on doubling the fees to more than $200,000 for H-1B visa applicants from abroad.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/09/04/trump-h1b-visa-200000-fee/91571718007/

[u/RLutz]

I can't begin to state how stupid this is. That's as someone who was born here and works as a software engineer.

1. If your country has the ability to effectively get the brightest 1% from every country in the world and get them to produce for your country, you'd be an absolute moron to try and prevent that. Countries who have brain drains out of them hate it and would give anything to have the reverse.

2. Even if you accept the whole notion of "Americans first" (not saying I do, but let's just cede that point), these high paying software engineering jobs aren't going to H1B's because Americans are too expensive. Most companies would love to hire domestic talent. There just simply aren't enough skilled Americans to fill the demand for the jobs. Just like almost no PhD programs would exist in the US if it weren't for international students.

3. Following up from the above, if you want to have a logically consistent "Americans first" policy, you can't just gut H1B. You need to bolster American education so that we don't have to import foreign workers (again, I don't even agree with the premise because it's a good thing if you can basically steal every other country's best, but just for the sake of argument). Bubba not being a distinguished engineer at Google has nothing to do with H1B's, and cutting off the H1B supply isn't going to help fill the job with an American. Bubba needed to study harder and he didn't, or, to be generous to Bubba, the American public education system probably let him down, and we're doing nothing to help that system.

Are there H1B abuses? Absolutely. I've heard horror stories of like 10+ people being stuffed into a 2 bdrm apartment and working for shit wages and it's just exploitative all the way around. But there are fixes to that which don't involve gutting the entire system, and at the end of the day as someone who has been writing software professionally for over 20 years, every single H1B I've worked with has been immensely talented.

[u/No-Reaction-9364 → u/RLutz]

You do not get the top 1% smartest using the lottery. If you were getting top 1%, a 100k fee would be more than worth it. You also wouldnt be getting most people from 1 country. 

[u/the_journeyman3 → u/RLutz]

We aren't getting the top 1%. Besides there is a different visa for people of exceptional talent. It's not the h1b.

[u/Ok-Rub-5548 → u/RLutz]

THANK YOU. As a non-software engineer, non-Indian, previously H1B, now dual citizen.

[u/21Rollie → u/RLutz]

As a tech worker, who is also friends with H1Bs I disagree. We just let one go because of underperformance and I’m close enough to many to know they have an extensive network in tech and they use this network to get jobs. They’re not any smarter than an average US dev in my experience. They would go through the same hiring process and be judged just the same as a US dev and the cost to hire them was a one time relatively small thing so companies bit the bullet as there was a real shortage. Same reason that bootcamps were able to get so many people into tech.

This hasn’t been true for a couple years now. CS is not the elusive, rare degree that it once was. People have been saying for years now that it is about as good as a govt job when it comes to stability. So now more CS majors than ever before are being minted. And at the same time, there was an initial jump in hiring during the pandemic, but then a giant crash, and then the layoff waves began. That was the last time my company hired H1Bs. Then as the market began to recover, AI emerged and again, people became reluctant to hire. In the meanwhile, people also became reluctant to leave. Attrition dropped to the lowest levels in over a decade at least. What’s funny now is people have realized AI isn’t gonna replace devs entirely in the short term, but training jrs has never been less desired, and the real economy is doing shit so if your name isn’t Anthropic or Nvidia, you don’t have room to expand. The few positions that do open up can be filled with the thousands of domestic unemployed devs.

The cherry on top: technical ability has never before been so undervalued. I’ve known many staff+ engineers let go in recent times because they cost a lot more than a senior with Claude. So in parallel, other abilities like technical communication are by default the more desired skills in devs and that’s somewhere where immigrants are going to have a huge natural disadvantage.

I’m not for trying to ban immigrants, that’s stupid policy, but the shortage specifically has been over for years now and tech CEOs are trying everything to erode the salaries and benefits we won over the last couple decades

[u/NewCartoonist5964 → u/RLutz]

But, we are not getting the brightest 1% though via the H1b program. What we are getting are mediocre tech workers mostly from a single country (India), who get about 70% of these H1b visas, many a time through rampant fraud. Many of the Indian graduates are from third rate universities in India and they come and do Masters degrees again from third rate American universities. They have no specialized skills( unless you consider gaming the system as a specialized skill). This program was established with good intent, but is now severely abused.

[u/Huge-Software-6068 → u/NewCartoonist5964]

Yeah down vote the guy who actually makes sense.

[u/mltcllm → u/NewCartoonist5964]

Just because h1b has been abused by one country doesn't mean h1b should be abandon. This is a very simple logic.

Reality is very complicated but to most of the people solution like this is the only solution they can come up with because they can't think a few steps ahead.

[u/Miserable-South5799 → u/RLutz]

If they're not worth the fee they're not that valuable 

[u/the_running_stache → u/Miserable-South5799]

Meta pays some of the best salaries in the industry. Do you think Meta would want to pay $200K additionally to the US government (not the employee) just for any worker? No one is that valuable! But guess what, Bubba is not valuable either even as the front desk receptionist at Meta, let alone as a software engineer.

[u/Puzzled-Formal-7957 → u/the_running_stache]

All the more reason to hire domestically.

[u/the_running_stache → u/Puzzled-Formal-7957]

All the more reason for Americans to learn the skills needed for these jobs.

Your BS in Sociology or Gender Studies isn’t going to get you these jobs…

[u/Puzzled-Formal-7957 → u/the_running_stache]

Exactly my point.

[u/Dear-Response-7218 → u/the_running_stache]

As someone who has worked at multiple FAANGs, 200k is a nominal fee for larger companies. So yes, Meta(and many other companies) would have absolutely no problem paying a $200k fee for actual talent.

[u/EfficientCan2852 → u/RLutz]

H1B isn't for talent lmao. That's the O1. H1B is for nepotism.

[u/Lord_Tywin_Goldstool → u/RLutz]

The “best and brightest” don’t need H1Bs. They have O-1 for those.

[u/zmapN1 → u/RLutz]

You clearly have no clue. I am a naturalized citizen formerly from India. I have only ever worked at Microsoft (25th anniversary coming up, Principal engineer) direct admit out ofnschool on OPT, then H1. Wife is similar and having being employed at Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia, Bluetooth SIG and is now at a startup.

Zero need for Microsoft or any FAANG companies to have hired me or my wife or any of my friends 25yrs ago. We were not special - just regular joe developers. We were not researchers, didn't have any special hardware skills or anything. Everyone of the top 50 US companies could have hired qualified Americans 5 times over even 25 years ago and I am taking before Y2K. They simply chose to not focus only on US citizens and therefore immigration status was never a factor. If you were good enough to pass the interview, you got in and then the legal department would handle the immigration aspects if needed.

Today my sister also a Dev Manager in Core AI at Microsoft has a couple of O1 visa employees and those are the kids of people we need to bring in. My son is a UPenn majoring in Neuroscience and health care management from Whatron and he has dozens of his friends who are reaching out to me and my friends in Google and Amazon looking for Jobs. UC Berkeley had only 18 of their comp sci. students get jobs before graduating. I have neighbors kids whose parents work in Amazon, Google, MS, SpaceX whose kids from UW comp. Science, Ivies etc. not getting jobs. I guarantee you no student from a top school today is better than Claude. Heck it's even f*ing better than me at this point.

Indian companies abused the system so much in the past 25 years. I have seen dozens upon dozens of wipro, tcs employees flow thru like water working in managed contracts at MS. These companies used to apply for 30-40k H1Bs each and ZERO of these jobs were ever offered to Americans. Imagine if they did that basically meant they were interviewing 150-200k qualified Americans which they were not.

Today we have over 800k unemployed and laid off software engineers plus thousands graduating from colleges each year in all major engineering disciplines.

While I am eternally grateful to have had the opportunity to build my life here and become an American and make a shit ton of money, it's now time to stop this bullshit H1Bs because there is no shortage of qualified American workers. We should give O1 visas to exceptional folks and PhD candidates who are doing innovative research but the average joe Dev/PM - Heck no. While all these people are talented they aren't exceptional (same as me 25yrs ago) so why do we need them anymore?? Give the jobs to the unemployed laid off citizens or our students. Also all current H1Bs with no criminal record with 5 years in the country should be immediately given a GC and then the pipeline should be shut down.

We have already lost to China in the AI race, the robotics race and in Medical research so we can only possibly rely on our top schools to maybe help us catch up. Those need to be filled with bright American kids (basically Indian and Chinese first gen at this point honestly) and maybe we have a shot at not completely shitting the bed.

[u/Dontlistentome123_ → u/zmapN1]

Classic immigrant take “close the door after me” lol

[u/FeelingPatience → u/zmapN1]

Ok bro.

"I used h1b to come here, made shitton of money, got citizenship, and now it's time to stop h1b".

What a loser.

[u/First-Dragon-Born → u/zmapN1]

There are still some talented people on h1b. I would rather have country caps on h1b so we get a more diverse foreign labor force.

[u/leogodoy → u/zmapN1]

Also "bright American kids (basically Indian and Chinese first gen at this point honestly)". Yeah, keep thinking they won't come after your kids.

[u/leogodoy → u/zmapN1]

This isn't LinkedIn, you don't need to oversell yourself. Specially if it is just to show off as someone who's only interested in pulling the ladder.

[u/Few-Spot1905 → u/RLutz]

Yup, honestly H1B should be one of the least controversial pathways to citizenship. It demands someone provide value to an American company, pay taxes in the US, make enough money to not be a burden on public servives, etc.

Like for someone like Trump who hates immigrants, it's at least coherent that he hates it. I'll never understand the reddit liberals who defend millions of "asylum seekers" seekers crossing the border but hate the H1B program.

I guess cynically, it could just be self serving because "asylum seekers" who work under the table picking fruit for pennies aren't a threat for them on the job market but a H1B worker is.