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www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. AmericanWorkers Are Hurting — But Not Because Of Immigrants HowTrump’s $100,000H-1B Visa Fee Is A Smart Bet On Innovation P resident Donald Trump’s decision to charge a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications provoked instant outrage, not just from the predictable corners but also from friends of the administration in SiliconValley who say it will hurt innovation. Ac- tually the opposite is true: It is a smart move for fostering a culture of creativity and development. Two points are critical to consider. First, early-stage start-ups don’t rely on H-1B visas in large numbers. The program’s complexity, lottery uncer- tainty and legal expense make it a tough fit for a small team racing to bring a product to market. According to an analysis last year, government and attorney fees routinely cost about $9,000 and could exceed $33,000 - and this was just to enter the lottery with no guarantee of a result. The federal government randomly selects applications to process when the visa cap is exceeded. Start-ups already have too much risk to manage. Second, countless H-1B visas have flowed to outsourc- ing and staffing firms that underpay relative to direct-hire tech roles. According to a Bloomberg investigation, some firms flood the lottery with multiple applications for the same workers, dramatically increasing their odds while crowding out legitimate applicants. These companies are unlikely to be bringing in the next generation of innova- tors; the main attraction appears to be simply that the visa-holders are less expensive than their American coun- terparts as lower-level workers. The information technol- ogy firm Infosys paid its H-1B workers a median salary of $91,520 in the fiscal year ending last September, while Tata Consultancy Services paid $88,000. The median sal- ary overall for computer and information technology jobs is $106,000. A salary minimum for H-1B workers was set by Con- gress in 1998 but was never adjusted for inflation. At the time, it was $60,000 for some H-1B visa holders, equiva- lent to $119,000 today. Putting pressure on American tech wages and importing more lower-level workers when AI is displacing entry-level software jobs is lunacy. It undercuts Americans who have worked hard and earned engineering degrees. And, in the long run, that hurts in- novation by making STEM fields less attractive. The theory behind the H-1B program is sound. Bring- ing in top workers has helped drive economic growth in America, especially in sectors such as technology. The problem is that time, and exploitation of loopholes, has caused the program to diverge significantly from its intent. The new fee helps solve this problem by removing the financial incentive for outsourcing shenanigans. Instead, it frees up visa spots for U.S. tech firms to bring in actual innovators. At a time when Meta is reportedly offer- ing hundreds of millions of dollars to top AI engineers, a $100,000 fee won’t deter Big Tech companies from recruiting people they genuinely believe are the best of the best. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put it perfectly: “The company needs to decide … is the person valu- able enough to have a $100,000-a-year payment to the government, or they should head home and go hire an American?” It’s not just the administration saying this. Netflix co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings - a Democratic megadonor and no friend of theWhite House - posted on X: “I’ve worked on H-1B politics for 30 years. Trump’s $100k per year tax is a great solution. It will mean H1-B is used just for very high value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed, and more certainty for those jobs.” (White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has clarified that the new fee is not an annual cost but a one-time expense for new applications.) The H-1B program doesn’t help innovation because start-ups hire star engineers on visas. That’s largely a myth. Instead, it works like this: Major tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and Meta use the visas to lure genuine global talent. These engineers work at tech firms, learn the American business culture, build networks and eventually obtain green cards. And then they start or join or invest in start-ups. The new reform will ensure that more H-1B visas go to these types of stars. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is the publisher of PolicySphere, a newsletter for right-of-center policy professionals in D.C. -Special to TheWashington Post By Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry T heWhite House is making it hard- er - and vastly more expensive - for the United States to attract global talent. That will hurt Ameri- can workers. The administration unveiled a $100,000 fee on H-1B visa petitions last week, squashing a program that enables companies to recruit foreign-born work- ers with specialized skills. Restrictions on student visas have also been proposed. Though courts might still weigh in to block these changes, the intended chilling effect is already driving away students and highly skilled workers. These moves are sold as protecting American workers. The reality is far from that: Though American workers face prob- lems, immigrants didn’t cause them. The real squeeze on U.S.-born workers has been increasing for decades. Shifts includ- ing technological change and offshoring have eroded the middle class by hollowing out demand for middle-skill jobs such as bank tellers and quality control inspec- tors. This bifurcation of the labor force - in which jobs are increasingly concentrated in high- or low-paying sectors - is a key reason wages have lagged for many and why millions of prime-age men have left the workforce. Restricting high-skilled immigration won’t fix that. In fact, it locks Americans out of the employment benefits that im- migration creates. Research shows that immigration typically pushes U.S.-born workers into higher-paying managerial and leadership positions. That job cre- ation could alleviate some of the middle- class squeeze by providing a ladder up to better-paid roles. Further, when firms add H-1B workers, they don’t cut U.S.-born workers. Particu- larly at smaller companies, hiring H-1B workers has a job-creating effect. Immigration also improves firm health. Companies that won all of their applica- tions to the H-1B lottery - the process by which the government allots the limited visas - saw revenue rise by more than 20 percent and were 2.5 percentage points more likely to survive. The firms are then able to make more investments and buy more business services, creating positive, economy-wide ripple effects that translate to employment growth. In short, maintaining legal immigra- tion pathways is overwhelmingly positive for U.S.-born workers, creating jobs and lifting wages. A tax on talent will only hurt competitiveness. Workers on H-1B visas generate innovation, particularly in the tech industry, and earn high, taxable wages. For their part, international stu- dents contributed more than $50 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023, and their tu- ition payments increase domestic student enrollment. There is no question that our immigra- tion system needs fixing. Many of the legal pathways to work in the U.S. were created more than 30 years ago, and short-term patches haven’t kept up. Indeed, there are instances of H-1B workers edging out local hires and of some firms abusing the program to suppress wages. But there are reforms that would limit harm to U.S.-born workers: (1) Make H-1B visas portable across employers so workers aren’t bound to their sponsoring company, preventing the job lock that can allow employers to artificially suppress wages. (2) Expand availability of labor- based green cards to reduce reliance on H-1B visas. (3) Prioritize visas for the roles most necessary to fill critical, documented labor shortages in job categories such as specialized nursing or cybersecurity. (4) Enforce the H-1B visa program’s rules. Similarly, there’s no scarcity of policy ideas that could help Americans earn higher wages and navigate a changing labor market. Between 2019 and 2024, for instance, wages grew substantially for low-wage workers due to policies such as expanded unemployment insurance and child tax credits that gave them leverage to demand better pay and find better positions. Improving such programs - combined with more apprenticeships and opportunities to learn new skills - can help workers advance. Such fixes require collaboration among workers, universities, businesses and government - a muscle that is underdevel- oped in America’s labor system. Ambi- tious, long-term reforms are more difficult than pointing fingers at a foreign-born en- gineer or an international student. What’s often sold as a solution - aggressive cuts to legal immigration - achieves the opposite by harming the employment and wages of U.S.-born workers. Our labor market does have problems - not jobs “stolen” by immigrants, but a workforce hollowed out at the middle and a skills system that hasn’t kept up. Scape- goating foreign-born workers is a cheap shot, not a solution. Marcela Escobari is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she leads the Workforce of the Future initiative. -Special to TheWashington Post By Marcela Escobari Opinion News India Times (October 4, 2025 - October 10, 2025) October 10, 2025 5