How does Microsoft pay the fee?
Which online portal do they go to? What bank account do they wire a check to over the weekend? What reason do they give for the payment? What USCIS code do they enter? What USCIS forms do they fill that USCIS will then snail mail (because they’re still living in the 90s) an I-797A to the employee that they will present at the border for evidence of payment. What address will USCIS mail the document to (which will be a U.S. address) and how does the employee who is currently abroad get that document from their U.S. mailing address to their current location abroad?
When are they gonna write the code for the lookup that the border agents can use to confirm the validity of this form and payment?
Also, how does all this happen over a Saturday and Sunday?
And even if there are answers to these questions where are those answers posted?
That's so dumb I can't believe you're suggesting it. In a rule-of-law country, lobbying the president should never be a solution to anything, much less routine bureaucracy.
here's your problem
Set aside this “nudge nudge wink wink” stuff - I’m providing a solution to the acute issue, not a moral judgement.
Looks like it was sorted https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/20/donald-trump-h1b-vi...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-unveils-gold-platinum-v...
That said I wonder if it’s more of a power grab with the discretion to grant exemptions being used to strong arm corporations to clamping down on criticism of Israel.
MS with N fewer workers is not going to bring in N*$440K less net income. The incremental income added by an average employee is much less than $440K.
Point 2 I’m certain exemptions will be granted that will mean in reality the H-1B gets to continue being a horrible problem for everyday Americans and the software industry in general. I don’t want to work in a lemon market and that’s what it has become. And I see this as more of an attack on free speech than an attack on H-1Bs but that shoe has yet to drop. In the meantime they need people to believe the threat is real so the companies will yield to power. The chaos is part of making it believable. If I was on a H-1B and I was too far away to make it in time I probably wouldn’t be too stressed about it but I’d understand why other people are.
This of course creates another problem -- highly paid foreigners price locals out of the housing market, but hej, we can always blame that on refugees, right.
Wanna raise the salary cutoff go for it.
But the people claiming that there is no salary cutoff and that H1B visa holders are incredibly lowly paid are simply lying.
Like any other rule or law there are people who break the rules and laws. Usually the way they prove the salary is not being met is by pointing to the tiny fraction of people breaking the law.
It’s like saying we should get rid of anti murder laws because murderers exist.
Though it is reasonable to ask whatever you want you must understand there are always someone more desperate (and often with higher skills) that will take that job.
So the fact that 10yoe can’t find a job doesn’t mean anything. Usually this is either too many demands from seeker or skill issue.
Or they don’t eant to take lower salary.
If a company was willing to pay 70k for a developer you must be delusional to think they will suddenly decide to pay 100k+ for local talent.
They will just get a remote contractor
And is it respectable and okay to switch up the law over the weekend if, and just because, the ones who are affected are large companies? Realistically, what's the rush to have the "law" (Congress?) come into effect two days after its announcement, beside making it a shakedown? Remember that policymakers anticipate, or should anticipate, second-order effects. Either Microsoft forks out $100k per employee, or the cost of coping with the new policy is pushed onto the regular Joe. In any case, this produces a sense of crisis and urgency that you'd criticize if it happened at a measly, inexperienced startup you happened to work at.
The law changes three months ahead? Looks like I'll have to cancel my December plans. But when I'm on a holiday? Sure, let me pack my bags, get back to the nearest airport and take the first transcontinental flight. Or maybe Microsoft is flexible enough to have me shoulder the $100K to stay until the end of my holiday?
I'm not sure how openly the measure was discussed beforehand (and on that point: the employees already have visas; why must they return, unless their visa is about to expire?), but it was promulgated _yesterday_.
It’s helpful to not be dogmatic about these things, and even more helpful if you abandon partisanship.
This form of argument, ends up normalizing the Trump presidency with the Biden presidency, which on its own is abhorrent to any scale of comparison.
Leave alone the fact that deciding to exit and leaving execution up to someone else is the quintessential act of sabotage.
Consider that this is less than a year of the Trump presidency.
And this is a sub thread where the comparison to the USSR is sustained.
It’s going to take a long time while Microsoft figures out if they will actually pay these fees and which budget it should come out of.
Meanwhile, if you didn’t return by Sunday, you’re locked out of the country and unable to show up for work which will result in your termination fairly soon.
FAANG are by far the largest users of H1-B. They also have billions of dollars and access to excellent lawyers. They can pay up for this; an excellent employee is certainly worth more than $100k per year to them. Think of this more as a tax levied on some of America’s wealthiest businesses.
The H1-B is used across many industries, not just tech.
I’m actually curious, have you worked at a large corporation before?
It would be atypical for the scenario you are describing to occur given that there has been a US government policy change that’s of no fault of the employee who is still eligible to work in the United States.
Folks aren’t going to be sitting around on Monday morning saying jeez Billy on the H1B visa didn’t show up to work today and we have no clue why, guess he is fired!
Within business units at this scale there are small, dedicated teams that manage contractors, vendor contracts and licenses, keep track of employees on visas, report that information for compliance purposes, etc, and they are almost certainly communicating with their employees who are currently out of the country to provide arrangements and additional details as things progress.
The issue is "my kids are at home in the US and I can't get home to take care of them because of this sudden policy that nobody knows how to navigate."
I deeply suspect it will go both ways -- one Billy would be paid for, while the other will be fired for not being able to show up. Not every Billy is on the same good standing with the corp.
Remember too that this coincides with an RTO order for Puget Sound that kicks in roughly the same time.
[1]https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/o...