[827a]

We issue 85,000 H1-B visas every year. Last year, there were 442,000 applications.

Its supply and demand. If you think any of these changes will cause fewer than 85,000 H1-B applications, then that is a good reason to believe that these changes might negatively impact the United States as a migration destination. However, with that added context and framing, I hope you'll agree that it won't; there's still going to be a smaller, but growing, number of people applying for the H1-B every year.

Increasing the number of H1-B visas has very little support from both sides of the isle. The 65,000+20,000 number was set, if you can believe it, 35 years ago. There were one or two temporary increases, but since 2005 its stayed at that 85,000 number.

[ido]

Why not set a salary floor for H1-B candidates? That's how the equivalent works in Germany (the floor is quite low imo but if it's too low it can be set higher). If you set the floor (maybe per profession) for software engineers at say $250k p.a. there'll be little benefit to bringing in unskilled labor, but the occasional great candidate could still get in.

[tao_oat]

There is a salary floor already, but it's pretty low at $60k/year.

[ido]

Sounds like it would have been simpler to just raise it to $160k instead of introducing a $100k fee.

[827a]

Yeah; it would have had the added benefit of generating more revenue for the government via increased income taxes ($100k * income tax rate over N years versus $100k only once).

But I think the reality about the H1-B program no one wants to state plainly is that its effectively a system of voluntary indentured servitude, and its important to all of the masters of the program that the visa holders accumulate as little power as possible.

[tracker1]

I've advocated for a long time that the fee should be 1:1 to the salary for the position along with a salary floor of $100k/year as it's for skilled work, which is largely historically been a break point. Today, that may be closer to 140 though.

The money generated should go towards grants for US citizens imo though, as it would shore up the "need" for foreign labor. As long as the economy is growing and there is demand it isn't a problem. If there's a legitimate need, then it should be worth the cost.

To those mentioning outsourcing will skyrocket, I doubt that as it's already widely used and there's a lot of additional friction without embedded staff/managers where the work is getting done, and even then.

[jalapenos]

Not simpler if the goal is tuk urr jaaabs

[fmobus]

I like Germany's BlueCard system (being a BlueCard immigrant myself), but implementing it for the US would have some extra complexity given the wild regional disparity in wages.

[bilekas]

The US has a new GoldCard system actually. : https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/the-...

[bsder]

> Increasing the number of H1-B visas has very little support from both sides of the isle.

A lot of us simply want the H1-B to green card conversion time to be 12 months to 24 months MAX and all the expense should be borne by the company.

That unblocks the pipeline and prevents the whole indentured servant depressing salaries problem. Any company that genuinely needs an H1-B will obviously hold onto the H1-B when it converts to a green card. Companies that are abusing the pipeline will be obvious as the green card holders will leave and the company will have to reapply for more H1-Bs.

[thatfrenchguy]

It can be 12-24 months if you’re not born in India and your lawyers do all their paperwork on time and you apply when USCIS is not crippled :)

[Saline9515]

A very short conversion time leads to a profitable business model where companies sell green cards to wealthy foreign citizens. You could pay a lump sum of 300k, company keeps 1/3 and pays back the rest to you as a salary for your fake H1-B job. At a total cost of $100k+taxes, it would be one of the cheapest "golden visa" in the world.

[bsder]

> A very short conversion time leads to a profitable business model where companies sell green cards to wealthy foreign citizens.

I don't buy it. This is spectacularly easy enforcement. A company applying for H1-Bs over and over and over is going to stick out and should get its H1-Bs denied--regardless of whether it is selling them to wealthy foreign nationals or is running an IT sweatshop that people flee as soon as they can.

Any company that isn't abusing the H1-B process will be able to demonstrate all the green card holders that are still working for them.

In addition, if foreign nationals want to come to the US and pay taxes here, we should let them. The US was built on immigration from working-class people--wealthy foreign nationals are kind of a no-brainer.

  Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
  With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
  Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
  A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
  Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
  Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
  Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
  The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
  “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
  With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

[Saline9515]

> A company applying for H1-Bs over and over and over is going to stick out and should get its H1-Bs denied--regardless of whether it is selling them to wealthy foreign nationals or is running an IT sweatshop that people flee as soon as they can.

You understand that 10 US companies hired 50k H1-Bs in 2025, out of 85k visas? The second largest hirer is Tata Consulting Services, who then "resells" the H1-Bs to clients while taking a cut. It's already happening.

And even then, you can still create subsidiaries or stand-alone companies to avoid being seen as a "repeat customer".

> In addition, if foreign nationals want to come to the US and pay taxes here, we should let them. The US was built on immigration from working-class people--wealthy foreign nationals are kind of a no-brainer.

This is a democratic issue, the USA is not earthlings' free for all, but the land of the citizens of the USA.

Just as a country is not a sum of taxpayers, immigration is not always mutually beneficial. If young CS graduates can't find a job because entry-level offers are reserved for foreigners, they'll end up working in underqualified jobs and paying less taxes, on top of the human cost caused by this situation. Supply and demand laws exist, and the job market is not magically immune because Amazon decided that the skills of the 14k H1-Bs they hired this year couldn't be found on the local market.

[fragmede]

Cheaper than the $5,000,000 Golden visa proposed by the President, sure, but at that point we're really just haggling anyway so then it's just a difference of degree.

[Saline9515]

They want to have a $2M platinium visa that allows you to bring workers, no questions asked, and to reuse the visa if you fire the worker. At 5% yield it's akin to $100k/y, which is close to the initial proposal to tax H1-bs yearly.

[blitzar]

Its on sale now for $1,000,000.

[valicord]

That's already how it works unless you happen to be from a couple unlucky countries

[giobox]

> unless you happen to be from a couple unlucky countries

Those "couple unlucky countries" make up ~80 percent of all H1B applications (India + China). Your comment makes it sound like this affects only a small set of H1B applicants.

[claw-el]

I believe the main ‘change’ of this $100,000 fee is the composition of labor. A doctor applies for H1B too and various other non-tech job applies for H1B too. Startups and hospitals have a much higher chance to not willing to pay for the fee and we will just end up with less ‘doctors’ in the 85,000 H1B visa approvals.

[influx]

Given the cost of healthcare in the USA and the AMA artificially limiting the number of doctors, I'm skeptical this fee will change anything.

[thijson]

I saw a comment in another thread that the AMA recognizes the problem of a deficit in new MD's. According to the comment, congress provides funding for MD residents, and that is the real bottleneck.

[Den_VR]

Don’t forget that the real utility of these H1B is for citizens of countries that exceed their EB quotas, which are primarily India and China just on the basis of their demographics. Without more serious reform of the immigration system I see this as a positive step towards raising the bar on those extra quotas.

[_DeadFred_]

This. H1B should still have to align with America's immigration goals of allowing people form all over the world in, not just certain countries. It was hard to get the entrenched systemic bias for western europeans opened up and it seems like H1B is now captured in the same way by a few ethnic groups.

[827a]

Its a fair point, but this $100,000 fee should not have been the flashpoint causing half the United States to care about this issue, and it being the flashpoint has got us arguing for the wrong thing. Immigrant doctors should have their own visa classification. There's no reason they should be competing in the H1-B lottery with Big Tech, especially now that its so expensive.

That isn't on the table right now. Its possible that it could be, as sometimes you need to have a problem before people will feel incentivized to solve it. On the other hand: We've had a serious medical care provider shortage since, like, the early 2000s; over 20 years of Bush (R), Obama (D), Trump (R), and Biden (D) to have solved this obvious problem; and no one has. Chesterton's Fence sometimes exists for a reason.

[claw-el]

I want to clarify that I am not trying to argue but genuinely curious what is the ‘right solve’ here.

If we create an exception for doctors, what about ‘medical lab technicians’, ‘wastewater treatment professionals’ or ‘air traffic controller’? All these jobs faces shortage in US right now. If we leave it up to the executive branch at the time to determine exceptions, we will just end up in a situation in exceptions going to the industry with the ‘best’ lobbyist.

I am not in a position to decide a policy like this, but I have a wild idea. Why not lower the application fee for H1B (or make it free) or even make it super easy to apply. Right now, the companies that are willing to abuse the H1B system will do so because they know the higher the application fee, the less competition they have to get those 85,000 slots. If every doctor, speech therapist, medical lab technologist is applying for H1B, it would totally crowd out the H1B abusers and it might no longer be worth it for them to try to game the system. Just musing on ideas, not that I can implement any of these.

[827a]

To clarify one small point: You have to be a US Citizen to be an Air Traffic Controller. But, I understand your broader point.

Before raising the fee to $100,000 this week, the "official" fees one would pay to apply for an H1-B were, effectively, $0. Employers would pay a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on their size. There might be some "unofficial" fees like lawyer and advisor fees to help with the process, but in essence: your "wild idea" was the status quo for 35 years.

At the end of the day, relying on temporary immigration programs to backstop critical job shortages isn't sustainable on the long-term. Its not fair to citizens, and its oftentimes not fair to the temporary immigrant either. The more efficient and feasible solution to these shortages is to incentivize citizens to enter these roles.

[milch]

I was told the total cost was about 10k or so including filing fees and lawyers, and so on, and O1 closer to 50k or so. Seems like most of big tech will just try for O1 instead now... I've heard some wild stories over the years of how people "manufactured" eligibility, and/or the kinds of arguments their lawyers made.

[mschuster91]

> The more efficient and feasible solution to these shortages is to incentivize citizens to enter these roles.

If one would purely go by the rules of the free market, the solution would indeed not be immigration, but either automating these jobs away, rationalizing them so you need fewer employees to handle the same workload or raise the compensations and non-payroll benefits to attract more (prospective) talent.

The problem is, it's one thing if you do that for air traffic controllers. Flights are too cheap anyway, making them a bit more expensive to pay for more ATC will also reduce demand which in turn would also have positive benefits on the environment (CO2) and airport residents (noise).

But for stuff like garbage disposal handlers, wastewater facility staff and other jobs on the high-ick, low-pay side of things? These are actually and literally vital for society to survive, but if prices were raised to reflect the fact that you need to pay people pretty huge sums of money to do these jobs? Barely anyone would remain to pay for these services.

In the end, immigration has been used by Western societies as a stopgap to avoid the inevitable conclusion that the wide masses by far do not earn enough money, and now that immigration is drying up - in the case of the US, from the political climate, in the case of Europe including the UK, many people from Eastern Europe going back to their home country during Covid and discovering life there has actually vastly improved over the last decades - the cracks are growing so large they can neither be hidden nor overlooked any more.

[foogazi]

> Immigrant doctors should have their own visa classification.

The perfect is the enemy of the good enough

[bluefirebrand]

We're certainly seeing that "good enough" right now is hollowing out the lower and middle classes in society

So it isn't in fact good enough, it is pure evil

[foogazi]

> hollowing out the lower and middle classes in society

by giving H1B visas to doctors ?

[_DeadFred_]

By grouping everyone so that people can make the argument 'you can't cut this, we need doctors and we'll lose doctors' and paralyzing any action while the majority of slots go to positions where we don't need to import workers/aren't doctors.

[trhway]

> The 65,000+20,000 number was set, if you can believe it, 35 years ago.

With many companies having set up foreign R&D offices L1 is in many cases preferable alternative. There are about 75K of those visas issued per year. Increase of H1B fee without similar increase of L1 fee would probably create a pressure on L1.