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Comment by FridayoLeary | Hacker News Reader

I read an article on cnn and i'm slightly confused. Is the fee 100k 300k or 1 million? Either way those are insane figures. Can anyone tell me what the fees have been historically and what the fees are in similar countries?

Edit: i read up a bit more on it and i'm unimpressed. Apparently only 65 to 85 thousand of these visas are granted a year and about half of them go to about 5 companies (amazon, microsoft etc) , who can treat these employees however they like, because if they lose their jobs they face deportation.

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Anyone that worked at those companies would tell you that there is little discretion in how salaries are set for rank-and-file employees. There is certainly abuse, but I don't believe it happens in FAANG companies.

Source: I worked for a FAANG company as an H-1B worker. They "mistreated" me so much that they sponsored a green card for me. Quotes mean sarcasm, just to be clear - it was a chill job with very good work-life balance and I have never felt mistreated.

you made 30 to 60pct less than a local hire with same qualifications.

don't know why downvoted. i hired many people via h1b and HR never allowed me to not offer 30pct less "becuse of incurred costs"

Maybe OP worked for a better employer than you?

i hope, but we paid better than google, options bets excluded.

$100K/year fee sounds extremely reasonable if there is in fact a shortage of skilled workers.

It sounds terrible if the sole purpose of H-1B is to pay less than the labor is worth.

Of course, this assumes that it actually has to be paid, rather than being used to extort political support.

I disagree. Reasonable would be to require a minimum salary for the job, as market evidence of scarcity.

Paying an exorbitant fee to the government will discourage the activity in the United States.

H-1B visas are often used for jobs like medical residents ($70k a year), professors, and even some public school teachers. These employers can't just absorb an extra $100k fee.

At that price scale, paying an extra $10k to a local will make you immediately discover that there was not in fact a labor shortage at all.

Don't you think that they would have tried that if it was an option?

For academics, it's a global market for talent. There may only be a small number of people in the world who are doing top research in a particular area.

For rural healthcare, if you're a hospital in a very poor, very remote area, and you want to hire say, an anesthesiologist, you have to hire someone who could make very good money working anywhere, but is willing to work at your hospital. $10k is not going to cut it.

No, because the existence of an underclass means it will be used. See agricultural labor and how an underclass prevents mechanization or wage increases.

Luckily, administrators' salaries and endowments can cover fees, and rural areas are often served by doctors who agree to loan forgiveness programs which help underserved areas.

> because if they lose their jobs they face deportation.

Just to clarify, this is true for the L1 visa, which is tied to an employer.

With the h1b, you have 60 days to find another employer, or you have to leave the country. It’s hard but not impossible. It’s a bad situation anyways.

It's 100k a year. H1B are normally valid for 3 years, so that's where the 300k comes from. The $1M figure is for the "Trump Gold Card" visa, which is unrelated to the H1B program.

I think the E.O wording says a 100K for an appliciant to enter the lottery and they'd hold that money I am assuming until you won, what happens if you don't win unclear? But I think this is all horrible law making. E.O. are not effective leadership or law building because its so underspecified and rush and haphazard. Its a shame that we can't have a sensible immigrantion reform and it is behavior like this that makes me feel republicans simply don't care about immigrantion reform just vibes. How they are doing it is simply unserious and punitive but short sighted.

This is simply going to push people away from coming to the US and we will see more and more robust tech competition with laws like this. Like them or hate them H1B visas are a major brain drain on all of the nations the US wants to compete with which is good for us not bad. Tech workers are not hurting in the salary department.

Please stop spreading the unsubstantiated rumor that it's 100K a year. It's not. It's for the lifetime of the visa which is 3-6 years, potentially longer, subject to employment.

This unsubstantiated rumor coming from......the Secretary of Commerce?

"Reuters was not immediately able to establish how the fee would be administered. Lutnick said the visa would cost $100,000 a year for each of the three years of its duration but that the details were "still being considered.""

"Lutnick said on Friday that "all the big companies are on board" with $100,000 a year for H-1B visas. "We've spoken to them," he said."

https://archive.is/WYuI1#selection-1571.0-1575.32

It's not what the official announcement from the White House said. The official announcement from the White House has made it seem that the $100K fee applies for the full duration of the visa. This number is chump change for a 3+3=6 year visa.

I don't know why I was downvoted since what I said is the truth, and it checks out as per the announcements from the White House. The forces of disinformation are strong.

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