All the fawning by tech CEOs wasn’t enough to convince Donald Trump to back off his crusade against immigrants. Yesterday the president announced that the government would be adding a $100,000-a-year fee on all H-1B visas in an effort to discourage their use.
While many industries make significant use of the H-1B program to attract highly skilled foreign workers, the tech industry is particularly reliant. Amazon has roughly 14,000 H-1B workers across its multiple entities, far more than any other company according to data from the federal government. But Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Tata Consultancy (a major IT services firm) each have more than 4,000 employees working on H-1B visas.
The fee will only apply to new applicants and it’s likely to face legal challenges, but even just