Gift link here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-19/trump-to-...

All it'll do it replace competent workers who don't have $100k to spare, with incompetent workers who have the money.

Doesn’t this just mean less talent? Companies would hire locally if equal level talent was available. I doubt it’s really about saving money when these jobs earn a lot of revenue per employee. Adding this fee means companies may just not find anyone worth hiring. It would make more sense to require H1B salary to be equal to the highest paid local employee of the same role at that company than to just throw an arbitrary $100K fee on.

I wonder how much of this was driven by public/media interest in the H-1B program rather than technical policy concerns.

For instance, there is still no action taken about the L-1B visa classification, which is a lot more open to abuse than H-1B is. It has no cap on how many visas can be issued every year. It also has no obligation to pay the employee a prevailing wage, no requirement for a bachelor's degree to qualify, and it cannot be transferred to a different employer (which means employees are stuck with their sponsor until they qualify for a green card).