The president recently issued an executive "proclamation" imposing a $100,000 fee on applications for H-1B visas. This would effectively end most such visas, which are used by tech firms and research institutions to hire immigrant workers and researchers with a variety of specialized skills. My Cato Institute colleague David Bier, a leading immigration policy expert, has a helpful summary of the policy and the harm it is likely to cause, if not struck down by courts:
President Trump is imposing a $100,000 fee to obtain an H-1B visa—the primary visa for skilled foreign workers. To be clear, this $100,000 fee is in addition to the salary, lawyer fees, and other costs of hiring an H-1B worker. This fee would effectively end the H-1B visa category by making it prohibitive for most businesses to hire H-1B workers. This would force leading technology companies out of the United States, reduce demand for US workers, reduce innovation, have severe second-order economic effects, and lower the supply of goods and services in everything from IT and education to manufacturing and medicine.
