As H-1B Visa Program Changes, Skilled Foreign Workers Consider Leaving U.S.
The Trump administration’s changes to the H-1B visa program, including a $100,000 fee and a weighted lottery system prioritizing higher salaries, are causing skilled foreign workers to reconsider their careers in the U.S. Despite the upheaval, companies are still filing H-1B visas, particularly for highly qualified candidates.
The pathway to building a career in the United States for many highly educated and skilled foreign workers was once clear: Earn a degree from an American university or college, and then be recruited by a company willing to sponsor one of the 85,000 H-1B visas awarded annually to fill specialized roles and grant work status for up to six years.
Now that reliable route is shifting as the Trump administration has made fundamental changes to the way the visas are granted.
The New York Times spoke to three international workers caught in the middle: an Indian woman who, after receiving her master’s degree in biotechnology from Northwestern University, struggled to find a company that would sponsor her for temporary employment; a Chinese-Mongolian marketing analyst in New York who was laid off and is now hustling to find an employer to sponsor her visa; and a Taiwanese software engineer in Seattle who dealt with anxiety because of shifting immigration policies amid widespread tech layoffs.
The H-1B program allows U.S. companies in major industries like technology and medicine to submit visa applications for foreign candidates, who are then entered into a lottery system. Though the visa program has been around since 1990, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began using a random selection process in 2013 to handle the surplus of applications. Since then, demand has continued to soar.
Last September, the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B applicants, stirring confusion around the program. Then in late February, another hurdle was introduced: The Department of Homeland Security turned this game of chance into one that prioritizes higher salaries.
Now, if there are more H-1B applicants than spots available, U.S.C.I.S. will conduct a weighted lottery system based on new criteria: wage levels that are calculated with government employment and wage data, which include factors like job title and location. This new process gives applications tied to higher wages an advantage in the lottery system.
The D.H.S. says the new rule is meant to better protect job opportunities for Americans and to deter companies from filing H-1B petitions for low-skilled, low-paid positions, a practice the Trump administration says has led to the abuse of the program.
“There’s definitely a panic level that we hadn’t seen in the past with clients,” said Matthew Maiona, a Boston-based immigration lawyer who has over 30 years of experience representing both employers and employees in sectors like I.T. and engineering.
“H-1Bs are not a cheap way of doing things,” he said. “You have to pay all the filing fees and legal fees, and you’re also paying a prevailing wage that’s set by the Department of Labor.”
These changes have impelled some foreign workers to rethink their careers in the United States. Those we spoke to said that it felt nearly impossible to find U.S. employers over the last year that would sponsor their H-1B visas for roles in biotechnology and marketing analytics.
Despite the upheaval in the H1-B program, as well as the struggling job market, Mr. Maiona said his firm hadn’t seen a decline in companies filing H-1B visas this year; but he noted that there had been a decrease in employers filing H-1B petitions for entry-level roles. “If you’re making a piece of software and the best qualified person is an H-1B, I’ll say 99 percent of the time the company is going to hire that person with the best qualifications,” he said.“
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