The implementation of a $100,000 annual H-1B visa fee will harm fair competition and innovation by disproportionately burdening small businesses and startups. While large tech giants can absorb the cost, smaller companies are effectively priced out of hiring specialized international talent. The policy’s real winner is big business, as a clause allowing the Secretary of Homeland Security to grant discretionary exemptions invites lobbying and favors firms with political connections, creating a system of crony capitalism that rigs the market against smaller competitors.
DAVID HEBERT FROM AMERICA SPECTATOR
With the implementation of a $100,000 annual fee for H-1B visas, the president is once again showing that he is not afraid to shake things up when it comes to protecting domestic workers. But if we look beyond the surface-level details, we can plainly see that this is a policy that will alarm anyone who believes in free markets and fair competition. Rather than promote domestic employment, this new fee will only do more of the same: protect large, established, and politically connected firms at the expense of smaller, newer, and less-connected firms and increase the cost of presently done with H-1B visas. What’s more, with the recent developments exempting current holders from the annual fee, the whipsaw-like implementation followed by immediate revision surrounding this policy creates but more chaos and confusion in markets.
[…] To be clear, there have always been restrictions and requirements for those seeking an H-1B visa and for those seeking to hire people on an H-1B visa. In 1998, the U.S. began requiring a $500 payment to be used to retrain American workers and reduce the need for H-1B visas in the future. In 2000, this was increased to $1,000, and in 2004, to $1,500. This is also not the first time that President Trump has taken action on the H-1B visas. In April of 2017, President Trump signed the Buy American and Hire American Executive Order. And in 2020, he temporarily suspended the entry of people with non-immigrant visas, which included H-1B visas, because they posed “a risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the economic recovery following the COVID-19 outbreak.”
For tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, who collectively employ thousands of workers on H-1B status, an additional $100,000 per worker is annoying but not devastating. With their quarterly profits in the hundreds of billions of dollars, a six-figure check to the government is like you and me buying a cup of coffee.
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