A few weeks ago, President Trump announced that the application fee for an H-1B visa would increase to $10,000. The award sent shockwaves, particularly the tech ecosystem, which heavily uses the visa to bring in talent from other countries.
On this week’s Equity, we sat down with Jeremy Neufeld, director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, to talk about visa changes, what it means, and why it’s happening.
He said the intention of the visa change was logical, but its implementation has “left a lot to be desired.”
“Some of the proposals that they ended up settling on were loopholes or prioritizing the wrong thing,” he said. As a result, he said, the visa changes will likely have the opposite effect than the Trump administration anticipated. “This will be a heavy tax on us, the best researchers around the world.”
But for all the sticker shock, there are plenty of people in support of the visa changes. Neufeld said it makes sense to ensure the 85,000 open H-1B visa slots actually go to valuable workers and it makes sense to charge a fee to ensure only the best apply — and receive the visa.
He also spoke about allegations that companies were abusing the visa. But again, he said, there are gaps in the changes that are hard to ignore.
Elsewhere in the conversation, we talked about other changes to the visa, like required salary levels. We’ve been thinking about the Trump administration’s reasons for changing the visa and what the chances are of more visa changes happening before its lottery in the spring. Neufeld also spoke about the impact this will have on the global tech scene and hiring.
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“I think a lot of people are going to be deterred from coming to the United States,” he said.
Overall, there are many uncertainties regarding almost every aspect of this visa change. Currently, he said, the changes are in a “notice and comment period,” where it is accepting feedback from members of the public. Given the reactions to the change, even more could happen.
