this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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[–] Speculater@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (7 children)

I think that's a good thing, right? They've been using these to under pay people for ages.

[–] toast@retrolemmy.com 37 points 4 days ago

Trump will waive the fees for compliant companies (Amazon, etc.) while enforcing it everywhere else. Small companies will lose, and it'll be just that much more leverage that Trump has over corporations in general.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 29 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They'll pay the fee and underpay the H1-B visa holders even more to make up the difference.

They're indentured servants. They can't quit or they risk being deported by an increasingly violent ICE.

[–] chisel@piefed.social 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They can't make up the difference, they pay them less than $100k. This could work out if it makes hiring H1Bs more expensive than hiring citizens. After all, the reasoning behind H1Bs is that the skills are so specialized that companies can't find citizens to fill the positions, so it's only logical that such skill would cost a premium (it doesn't because it's being abused to exploit immigrants and suppress wages for everyone).

H1Bs are temporary, the workers are going back at some point. And with the job market as competitive as it is, do we really need to bring in more workers?

I'm sure this will be astonishingly poorly implemented, if it ever gets past the "say random shit to distract from other issues" phase. But the core of the idea is solid.

[–] Speculater@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

Which was my original point. Nurses especially suffer in states like Florida, where they can get away paying them $30/hr to take on 7 high acuity patients, because if they won't work for that, the hospitals just bring in H1Bs.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 days ago (2 children)

for technology? no. they will simply hire remote outsourcing firms instead of importing people

[–] chisel@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

They already can. How is hiring an H1B any different than outsourcing? For a higher cost, you get a local workforce in the same time zone with a higher quality of work. That's the same proposition as hiring citizens. Sure, if H1Bs didn't exist, or were made more equitable such that H1B workers are fairly compensated, some percentage of the current H1B jobs would be outsourced. But I bet it'd be a low percentage since that option already exists yet companies have decided that a local workforce is worth an extra cost.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)
  1. outsourcing firms pay their staff maybe 1/10th what the h1b guys are making.

  2. all the h1b tech guys i know are happy about living in the us. i think many of them intend to go for citizenship

[–] chisel@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

Yeah, H1B people are people too. They're capable and looking to better their lives. It's a better deal for them to come and work in the current conditions than it is for them to stay home, otherwise they wouldn't do it. But the problem is, they're stuck in their jobs under threat of deportation, and companies know that treating them like shit is still better for them than going home. Companies use it as a way to extort them, pay them paltry wages, and to lower the leverage of citizens so they can pay them less too. So we either need to make the H1Bs less appealing to companies so that employing H1Bs is not preferrable employing citizens (i.e. add massive cost), or give the H1B people additional leverage so that if companies treat them like shit, they can work elsewhere.

[–] Speculater@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Doesn't that contradict their requirement to be in the office??

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] Speculater@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

If they'll outsource the workers overseas, instead of hiring citizens, that would go against their pushes to get everyone to return to the office.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

before the pandemic I worked at companies in the office that had overseas teams in India. it's a common arrangement I think

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Most American tech companies have offices in India.

Microsoft alone has at least 10 offices.

Google has 7 offices. 3 of them are in Bangalore. Facebook and Apple have 5 each.

And it's not just tech. Morgan Stanley has 4 offices in India, JPMC & Goldman Sachs each have 3.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not really. The desire to under pay people is stronger than the desire to have a workforce in the US.

Also, the term "under pay people" is a complex one. Sure, it might be below average for a US citizen, but a great opportunity for someone from somewhere else.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

At the same time, recent headlines about "CS degree holders aren't guaranteed a job anymore" wouldn't be happening without the program.

H1Bs were badly abused, companies would post jobs with ridiculous requirements, throw away the resumes they got, and then claim there were no Americans willing and ready, so they neeed that immigrant. It's driven down wages and jobs.

But the solution wasn't to axe the program, rather figure out a better solution that doesn't fuck over Americans.

[–] Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

According to the article there's no details on how the fee is to be applied, but it's certainly not going to workers.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Quite the opposite, thyell recoup it from the workers.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's still a $100,000 deterrent, and maybe when news of the degrading working conditions reach the homeland there will be less applicants.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Probably fewer instead

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Makes it hard to use h1bs the way they were supposedly meant to be used; to make it easier to hire talent that can't be found domestically. It think this will accelerate offshoring even more. I would have preferred the program was just reformed to make gaming the "prevailing wage" requirement harder, and to give h1b workers more freedom so they're not as easily exploitable.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

This is my belief. Companies will hire people in their existing foreign offices and that talent will never come into the US.

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

It's a $100k fee, not a $100k minimum salary. Meaning it will be that much more expensive to employ them