What to know about the H-1B visa Trump has targeted with $100,000 fees, generating confusion, fear

By PAUL WISEMAN BARBARA ORTUTAY and PIYUSH NAGPAL Associated Press The Trump administration s abrupt decision to slap a fee on H- B visas has stunned and confused employers students and workers from the United States to India and beyond Since announcing the decision Friday the White House has tried to reassure jittery companies that the fee does not apply to existing visa holders and that their H- B employees traveling abroad will not be stranded unable to re-enter the United States without coming up with The new agenda took effect at a m Eastern Sunday RELATED Donald Trump s pricey H- B visas alarm prospects aiming for Silicon Valley jobs Despite the effort at reassurance there s still specific folks out there recommending to their H- B employees that they not movement right now until it s a little clearer Leon Rodriguez a partner at the Seyfarth law firm who was director of U S Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama administration Related Articles Trump s visa targets a billion India success story Indian tech stocks decline on US changes to H- B visa campaign HSBC says increase in US H- B visa costs is manageable Donald Trump s pricey H- B visas alarm prospects aiming for Silicon Valley jobs Trump shapes immigration gilded age with H- B fee Other questions remain selected of them basic What genuinely is the process for paying this Rodriguez declared Usually when an agency is going to charge a fee there s a whole process There s the creation of forms for collecting that fee At this point we don t truly know what that process will be like Key questions remain such as whether the new fee will apply to universities and nonprofit research organizations employers that Congress has exempted from the annual limit on H- B visas disclosed Bo Cooper partner at the immigration law firm Fragomen Del Rey Bernsen Loewy Here s a look at what the H- B visa campaign is and what the Trump administration is doing to it What are H- B visas and who uses them Created by the Immigration Act they are type of nonimmigrant visa meant to allow American companies to bring in people with technical skills that are hard to find in the United States The visas are not intended for people who want to stay permanently Several eventually do but only after transitioning to different immigration statuses An H- B allows employers to hire foreign workers who have specialized skills and a bachelor s degree or the equivalent They are good for three years and can be extended another three years suggesting that there are now around H- B visa holders in the country and another half a million or so dependents economist Stephen Brown of Capital Economics wrote in a commentary Monday At least of the H- B visas approved since have been for computer-related jobs according to the Pew Research Center But hospitals banks universities and a wide range of other employers can and do apply for H- B visas The number of new visas issued annually is capped at plus an additional for people with a master s degree or higher Those visas are handed out by a lottery Chosen employers such as universities and nonprofits are exempt from the limits According to Pew nearly three-quarters of those whose applications were approved in came from India What did Trump do The White House reported the fee The application fee is as of now plus other relatively nominal processing charges It took effect barely hours later Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick mentioned the fee would be applied annually for a total of over the maximum number of renewals allowed The White House clarified Saturday that it was a one-time fee and declared it would not apply to current visa holders Trump also rolled out a million gold card visa for wealthy individuals The moves are certain to draw lawsuits charging that the president was improperly sidestepping Congress with a dramatic overhaul of the legal immigration system Why target H- B visas Critics say they undercut American workers luring people from overseas who are often willing to work for less than American tech workers do Staffing companies such as Tata Consultancy Services often supply Indian workers to corporate clients To take advantage of artificially low labor costs incentivized by the plan companies close their IT divisions fire their American staff and outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers the White House reported in its proclamation Friday In a review the left-leaning Economic Strategy Institute unveiled that of the H- B positions certified by U S Labor Department are assigned wages below the median for the job Brown at Capital Economics wrote that it is hard to disagree with the administration s argument that the initiative necessities restructuring Giovanni Peri director of the Global Migration Center at the University of California Davis mentioned that abuses of the undertaking such as bringing in mid-level coders to replace higher-paid Americans do occur but are relatively rare Majority H- B visa holders he declared really are highly skilled workers who are hard to find Greater part of these people come in and they have helped the productivity of firms they have helped innovation Peri commented They have complemented the work of Americans and they have allowed improvement What impact will the H- B crackdown have Brown mentioned that various tech firms can supposedly afford to pay to bring in skilled workers Nonetheless he wrote the upfront fee will clearly be too high for numerous companies to stomach Last year the healthcare retail and accommodation food services sectors accounted for a quarter of H- B visas between them and firms in those sectors will perhaps find it harder to afford the fee The higher fee along with other Trump administration attempts to curb immigration is likely to reduce the U S labor supply and push wages higher Brown commented Foreign workers like Alan Wu are worried and stunned by the speed with which Trump disrupted the H- B process Can you release particular approach which impacts tons of people just like that revealed Wu who is working in Indianapolis as a facts scientist for a pharmaceutical company He is working legally on his trainee visa after earning a doctorate He s failed to win the H- B lottery for two consecutive years And he s now rethinking his plan to live permanently in the United States where he s lived for more than a decade I am definitely concerned about my job now that the cost and exposure of hiring a foreigner is so high he commented Navneet Singh who runs a consultancy Go Global Immigration in India s Punjab state stated changes to H- B visa policies are likely to significantly impact future migration to the U S particularly from India Trump is trying to suffocate new immigrants who are skilled so that they won t take the jobs away from the average American But by doing so they will be making U S production expensive Singh announced He disclosed the new agenda is likely to create advantages for competitors in other countries Countries like France Netherlands Germany and Canada are set to gain from this move he added Chosen Indian students aspiring to pursue higher studies in the U S are disappointed It feels like a door closing mentioned one aspiring trainee who requested anonymity What businesses will be hurt the majority Greg Morrisett dean and vice provost at Cornell Tech commented startups and small businesses are likely to be the greater part affected by the fees since there s no way they can pay them Cornell Tech for instance has launched about startups and the vast majority have students coming from overseas The aftermath They ll pick up and move to Europe or Asia wherever they can find he announced The big tech companies will likely move a lot of operations and things into other countries We saw this when for example you know Ireland made it really attractive from a tax perspective All of a sudden all the headquarters move to Ireland Morrisett commented And startups he added the next Amazon the next Google will give up here and go somewhere else and then we won t have that advantage in the next generation of tech leadership Barbara Ortutay informed from Oakland California and Piyush Nagpal from New Delhi India AP Writer Fu Ting contributed from Washington