It doesn’t make sense to impose an immigration restriction that will be declared invalid by a court, and antagonize some people by excluding their employees or relatives from the country. But yesterday, President Trump issued an executive order raising “the fee that companies pay to sponsor H1-B applicants to $100,000.”
An H-1B visa allows employers to hire foreign workers for a temporary period, in specialty occupations that require a bachelor’s degree in certain fields, such as science, engineering, or computer programming..
An immigration lawyer says “the president has literally zero legal authority to impose a $100,000 fee on visas. None. Zip. Zilch. The only authority Congress has ever given the executive branch here is to charge fees to recover the cost of processing the application.”
But it it will go into effect for a while before a court strikes it down.
This restriction on H1-B visas could cause economic harm. A doctor says, “This will be absolutely devastating in the medical field. 30% of residents are international medical graduates and 10,000 of 43,000 residency spots are filled by doctors with H1-B visas. Previously the H-1B fee was below $5,000. No hospital will pay a $100,000 fee for a $55,000 resident salary.”
This restriction might cost more revenue than it raises, by driving jobs overseas. An immigration lawyer says, “the administration appears to want a company to pay $100,000 per year to the government for each H-1B worker it employs. The theory: firms will hire U.S. workers instead. The reality: firms will just move jobs overseas where talent is available.”
Having productive immigrant employees in the U.S. can enable a company to make more money, and thus expand here and hire more U.S. workers as well. Economist Scott Lincicome says, “Given prior research on how R&D-intensive companies in the US respond to new limits on H1Bs, this Executive Order should be called the ‘Offshoring Innovative US Industries Act of 2025.'” A study found that “firms respond to restrictions on H1-B immigration by increasing foreign affiliate employment…particularly in China, India, and Canada.”
Another study says that skilled immigrants are usually “linked to increased wages and stable or expanding employment for native-born U.S. workers. In one very recent study, skilled immigrants were found to have raised the wages of less-educated native workers.”
The executive order apparently won’t apply to people who already have H1-B visas, although that is not clear from the language of the executive order itself. An administration official says “the new H-1B entry ban does not apply to people with current visas (despite the text not containing ANY exception for people with current visas).”
Recent public opinions polls show at least 56% of voters disapprove of Trump’s performance in office. Most voters don’t like the Democrats, either, but the Democrats nevertheless lead by enough in the generic ballot that they will likely take control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 election (for example, the Democrats lead by 8% in the most recent Atlas Intel poll).
