6 ms·

Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers

ajaimk 1y ago
Seems to be limited to H1B applicants who are outside the country. If I'm reading this correctly, it doesn't impact renewals for those in the country.
- whatever1 1y ago
  You cannot renew a visa (any visa) in the US. You need to exit the country and apply to a US consulate.
  - psidium 1y ago
    Yes, but a visa stamp renewal is a visa “application” while the document that allows the application is the “petition”, which is the word used on this text and the step requiring the payment.
    - cvhc 1y ago
      "Section 1. Restriction on Entry. (a) ... the entry into the United States..., is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000". OK, if I consider this interpretation, which of the following do you think will apply to already-approved H-1B petitioners: 1. Existing H-1B holder can amend their already-approved petition by "supplementing a payment" to become eligible for a visa and re-entry. 2. It's not possible to amend an already-approved H-1B petition. So existing H-1B holders can never satisfy the requirement. They cannot re-enter with H-1B visa anymore. 3. This EO is not retrospective. So already-approved H-1B petitioners (with or without visa) are fine.
      - psidium 1y ago
        I’m not not a lawyer at all and I have no real idea. My guess is that existing visas are already printed and henceforth there is no petition anymore, you have a status or visa already. Since the old petition didn’t require the payment, you don’t need to show proof of payment now. But lol if I actually know how this works, can be anyone’s guess. My guess is that if this goes forward new h1b visas petitioned while the worker is outside the US will have a line saying “must show proof of payment” or something like that, while petitions while in the US won’t have that line on their visa stamp
gnabgib 1y ago
The $100K H1-B origin, the discussion on the front page continues (550 points, 3 hours ago, 601 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45305845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45305845
cadamsdotcom 1y ago
They do well explaining how H-1b is broken - but adding a $100k petition fee only breaks it worse. A real fix would be fantastic.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  Why does it break it worse?
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    This does nothing to stop the rise of GCCs. In tech industry, we already began slowing down H1B hiring after COVID, and remote work only exacerbated that trend (I can't justify spending $150k plus an additional 25-35% in withholdings, medical, and benefits when I can hire 2-3 people with a similar outlay in Praha or Bangalore or Tel Aviv). At least with H1B hiring, there was some incentive for industries like cybersecurity to keep some engineering headcount in the US. Now I have no reason not to completely offshore to Tel Aviv or Praha becuase the talent is there and not in the US. This H1B change does nothing to solve the pipeline crisis nor does it solve offshoring (though even with a services tax, I'd be hard pressed to find the same ecosystem in the US like I can in Israel or Poland or even India for significant swaths of cybersecurity). Finally, charging $100k per year per H1B employee means I can now justify a $1-10M investment in building a GCC abroad in CEE or India and availing tax benefits, subsidies, and tax holidays. All this did is now incentivize me to push my portfolio companies to move hiring almost entirely abroad and choose a couple of high level PMs and EMs on H1Bs who would be open to becoming a Director of PM or Director of Engineering at a GCC abroad. On top of that, the cream of the crop you want with a brain drain like academics in STEM fields, nurses, and doctors are sponsored on H1Bs. America has a pipeline and skills problem in a lot of STEM fields and subfields, and coding bootcamp grads aren't going to cut it. Cutting down on processing abuse by consultancies is something everyone can get behind, but this is literally the stupidest way to approach that problem.
    - ojbyrne 1y ago
      What’s a GCC?
nonethewiser 1y ago
H1-B program is exploited. They are not supposed to be hired unless there aren't Americans who can fill the role. There should be a large fee associated with it.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  Find me a dozen new grads with exploit development experience or OS internals knowhow beyond a summary course. I can do that in Tel Aviv over a week.
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    Maybe don't hire new grads if you need experience for the position.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      The point is to highlight the skill gap. There's a reason Wiz was founded Tel Aviv and not Silicon Valley. In a lot of technical subfields, the talent pipeline in the US is dead because of a mix of government, education, and (yes) personal apathy,
  - Tadpole9181 1y ago
    Then you go headquarter your business and live in Tel Aviv. This situation is untenable.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      That's what's steadily happening, and why the pipeline crisis in cybersecurity and other segments of the tech industry is arising in the US. The US system only worked because the US had the right mix of openness to domestic and foreign capital and talent. A lot of people on HN and in our industry in the US need to recognize that they are competing in a global market, and need to upskill accordingly. Just having a CS degree and knowing Leetcode isn't enough, and I'm not going to pay $150k base for an MLE who only knows how to use PyTorch wrappers and basic math, but little-to-no CUDA or Infiniband background, or for a new grad SWE to work on a CNAPP if they don't understand how eBPF and LSMs work. And no, it is not our responsibility as businesses to incubate that talent if American admins are not helping us (though I shouted myself hoarse about this when I used to be in that space). Everything has become hyper-politicized in the US now, and that is not the kind of environment any business can operate in.
C-x_C-f 1y ago
[flagged]
- sokoloff 1y ago
  If I'm concerned with the overall citizen population's job prospects, the relative size of the increases matters more to me than the absolute change. If I created 1 nepotistic software job for my kid and 3 jobs for software professionals not related to me, I think very few people would look at that and say "Oh, well three times as many non-nepotistic jobs were created, so we can ignore the one..."
  - C-x_C-f 1y ago
    How are H-1Bs comparable to nepotism?
    - sokoloff 1y ago
      Don't focus on the nepotism aspect specifically, but rather that job group in one distinct, identifiable population (my kid or H1Bs) grew at a far higher rate than for the general (not my kids or not H1Bs) employment market, despite the latter experiencing more absolute growth.
      - C-x_C-f 1y ago
        I still don't see what the issue is. Consider two scenarios: 1. H-1Bs get massively reduced over the next five years. Tech sector crisis ensues due to market shocks. Foreign workers decrease. American workers go up by 25% (~2.5M). 2. H-1B numbers stay as is. Tech sector relatively unperturbed. Foreign workers increase by 50% (~1.3M). American workers increase by 30% (~3M). Wouldn't you argue that 2 is preferable to 1? (I'm not saying that a crisis will happen if H-1Bs end, I'm just presenting two scenarios with different relative increases that I believe prove my point)
        sokoloff 1y ago
jakozaur 1y ago
Does it apply to people who planned to start on Oct 1, 2025? With the current system, you must apply in April if you succeed in the lottery, and then you can start in a few months in October, once per year. Looks very uncomfortable for those who were about to relocate.
- Izikiel43 1y ago
  Looks like it: a) Pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), the entry into the United States of aliens as nonimmigrants to perform services in a specialty occupation under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000 — subject to the exceptions set forth in subsection (c) of this section. This restriction shall expire, absent extension, 12 months after the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025.
deleted 1y ago
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deleted 1y ago
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Jalad 1y ago
Bsky thread which reported a bunch of details I didn't see in other outlets https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lz7ybcsn522n https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...
- ivewonyoung 1y ago
  > H-1B visa holders are REQUIRED to leave the country to renew their visas every few years This part is not exactly true. You can renew H1B indefinitely within the USA(every 3 years, need a pending Green card application from the 2nd extension onwards i.e after 6 years). However, if you leave the US for any reason you won't be able to re-enter the USA without a renewed visa stamp from a US embassy. The two exceptions are that you can visit Canada or Mexico for less than 30 days without triggering the visa stamp requirement.
  - Freedom2 1y ago
    No, it's correct. The original comment said "to renew their visas". The visa expires on its expiration date, however the H1B status itself is extended. Hope this helps.
nis0s 1y ago
If the cost benefit analysis for employers still shows that H1-Bs are cheaper, how will this offset H1-B exploitation? My guess is that this will suppress STEM wages artificially to account for paying a one-time fee for an H1-B, but hiring someone for 1+ years at that suppressed rate will be cheaper. Employers will blame AI for decrease in STEM wages, of course. A complementary solution is to add the $100k fee, and to restrict H1-B per employer per year, or something like that.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  In 2025, the decision isn't hiring someone on an H1B versus a citizen - the cost is mostly a wash. The decision is hiring in the US (visa or citizen) versus hiring abroad. Given that a large number of EMs, PMs, Directors, and even VPs are on some sort of immigration or work visa, this makes it easier to incentivize you as an employer to move some of them back to India or Czechia to open a GCC. This is what has been happening for the past 5 years now. On top of that, vast swathes of STEM academia are dependent on H1B. You simply aren't going to find enough American citizens with a background in (say) battery chemistry to become a tenure track professor versus from Korea, Japan, or China. Now you basically created an incentive for large swathes of junior faculty in STEM subfields to return to Asia, leading to a massive reverse brain drain.
  - nis0s 1y ago
    > The decision is hiring in the US (visa or citizen) versus hiring abroad. True, but there’s a balance that employers have to maintain to get some in-state advantages from local or state governments for job creation. That said, it makes more sense for America to get trainers or professors for niche subfields than actual workers so you can create homegrown talent, not sure why that isn’t done more.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      > but there’s a balance that employers have to maintain to get some in-state advantages from local or state governments for job creation True! The issue is local, state, and federal governments gives limited benefits compared to CEE countries, Israel, India, and others who roll the red carpet with multi-year tax holidays, subsidizes, and targeted hiring pipelines. > makes more sense for America to get trainers or professors for niche subfields than actual workers so you can create homegrown talent How? They overwhelmingly came on H1Bs as well, not O-1s. This is why this is such a stupid approach, and is absolutely showing the hallmarks of a Stephen Miller policy. Interestingly, this seems to have overshadowed the Trump Gold Card and Platinum Card announcements (which part of me thinks was part of the reason this announcement happened).
utrechtNL 1y ago
Good. Skilled Indians/Chinese/Europeans should go back to their countries, build their own tech and compete with the US. People are smoking if they think “talents” would still want to stay in the US given this series of policies (i.e. recent cuts/restrictions on science funding, international students, and visas) from Trump government. This is a good time for EU to build its own digital economy.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  Pretty much. This is basically a free "Thousand Talents" program for much of the EU, India, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and others. This is ridiculously stupid given how vast swathes of industries we want to redevelop need talent from our partners in the EU, Japan, Korea (still opposed to Hyundai's visa shenanigans, but two wrongs don't make a right - also interesting how HN is so positive about this but so negative about that), etc
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- protocolture 1y ago
  >Good. Skilled Indians/Chinese/Europeans should go back to their countries Agreed. Rest of the world needs to choke the USA and prevent our talent from improving the US. Theres no reason to try and help Trump.
moribvndvs 1y ago
Doesn't this just encourage companies to off-shore even harder, which is arguably more damaging to US tech workers than H-1Bs? I agree that the program is routinely abused by employers, but I’m not sure punishing foreign workers for this fact is the remediation we need.
cmxch 1y ago
Just rip out the entire 1965 Immigration Act root and stem along with its follow on provisions. Then replace with a points system with citizen impact factored into the equation. To handle the losses, have any firm and their downstream contractors and clients pay off displaced individuals many times over, with regional adjustments - such that it is cost prohibitively expensive to even think of bodyshopping people.
harbingerofdoom 1y ago
[dead]

Seems to be limited to H1B applicants who are outside the country. If I'm reading this correctly, it doesn't impact renewals for those in the country.

whatever1 1y ago
You cannot renew a visa (any visa) in the US. You need to exit the country and apply to a US consulate.
- psidium 1y ago
  Yes, but a visa stamp renewal is a visa “application” while the document that allows the application is the “petition”, which is the word used on this text and the step requiring the payment.
  - cvhc 1y ago
    "Section 1. Restriction on Entry. (a) ... the entry into the United States..., is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000". OK, if I consider this interpretation, which of the following do you think will apply to already-approved H-1B petitioners: 1. Existing H-1B holder can amend their already-approved petition by "supplementing a payment" to become eligible for a visa and re-entry. 2. It's not possible to amend an already-approved H-1B petition. So existing H-1B holders can never satisfy the requirement. They cannot re-enter with H-1B visa anymore. 3. This EO is not retrospective. So already-approved H-1B petitioners (with or without visa) are fine.
    - psidium 1y ago
      I’m not not a lawyer at all and I have no real idea. My guess is that existing visas are already printed and henceforth there is no petition anymore, you have a status or visa already. Since the old petition didn’t require the payment, you don’t need to show proof of payment now. But lol if I actually know how this works, can be anyone’s guess. My guess is that if this goes forward new h1b visas petitioned while the worker is outside the US will have a line saying “must show proof of payment” or something like that, while petitions while in the US won’t have that line on their visa stamp

gnabgib 1y ago

The $100K H1-B origin, the discussion on the front page continues (550 points, 3 hours ago, 601 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45305845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45305845

cadamsdotcom 1y ago

They do well explaining how H-1b is broken - but adding a $100k petition fee only breaks it worse. A real fix would be fantastic.

nonethewiser 1y ago
Why does it break it worse?
- alephnerd 1y ago
  This does nothing to stop the rise of GCCs. In tech industry, we already began slowing down H1B hiring after COVID, and remote work only exacerbated that trend (I can't justify spending $150k plus an additional 25-35% in withholdings, medical, and benefits when I can hire 2-3 people with a similar outlay in Praha or Bangalore or Tel Aviv). At least with H1B hiring, there was some incentive for industries like cybersecurity to keep some engineering headcount in the US. Now I have no reason not to completely offshore to Tel Aviv or Praha becuase the talent is there and not in the US. This H1B change does nothing to solve the pipeline crisis nor does it solve offshoring (though even with a services tax, I'd be hard pressed to find the same ecosystem in the US like I can in Israel or Poland or even India for significant swaths of cybersecurity). Finally, charging $100k per year per H1B employee means I can now justify a $1-10M investment in building a GCC abroad in CEE or India and availing tax benefits, subsidies, and tax holidays. All this did is now incentivize me to push my portfolio companies to move hiring almost entirely abroad and choose a couple of high level PMs and EMs on H1Bs who would be open to becoming a Director of PM or Director of Engineering at a GCC abroad. On top of that, the cream of the crop you want with a brain drain like academics in STEM fields, nurses, and doctors are sponsored on H1Bs. America has a pipeline and skills problem in a lot of STEM fields and subfields, and coding bootcamp grads aren't going to cut it. Cutting down on processing abuse by consultancies is something everyone can get behind, but this is literally the stupidest way to approach that problem.
  - ojbyrne 1y ago
    What’s a GCC?

nonethewiser 1y ago

H1-B program is exploited. They are not supposed to be hired unless there aren't Americans who can fill the role. There should be a large fee associated with it.

alephnerd 1y ago
Find me a dozen new grads with exploit development experience or OS internals knowhow beyond a summary course. I can do that in Tel Aviv over a week.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  Maybe don't hire new grads if you need experience for the position.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    The point is to highlight the skill gap. There's a reason Wiz was founded Tel Aviv and not Silicon Valley. In a lot of technical subfields, the talent pipeline in the US is dead because of a mix of government, education, and (yes) personal apathy,
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  Then you go headquarter your business and live in Tel Aviv. This situation is untenable.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    That's what's steadily happening, and why the pipeline crisis in cybersecurity and other segments of the tech industry is arising in the US. The US system only worked because the US had the right mix of openness to domestic and foreign capital and talent. A lot of people on HN and in our industry in the US need to recognize that they are competing in a global market, and need to upskill accordingly. Just having a CS degree and knowing Leetcode isn't enough, and I'm not going to pay $150k base for an MLE who only knows how to use PyTorch wrappers and basic math, but little-to-no CUDA or Infiniband background, or for a new grad SWE to work on a CNAPP if they don't understand how eBPF and LSMs work. And no, it is not our responsibility as businesses to incubate that talent if American admins are not helping us (though I shouted myself hoarse about this when I used to be in that space). Everything has become hyper-politicized in the US now, and that is not the kind of environment any business can operate in.

C-x_C-f 1y ago

[flagged]

sokoloff 1y ago
If I'm concerned with the overall citizen population's job prospects, the relative size of the increases matters more to me than the absolute change. If I created 1 nepotistic software job for my kid and 3 jobs for software professionals not related to me, I think very few people would look at that and say "Oh, well three times as many non-nepotistic jobs were created, so we can ignore the one..."
- C-x_C-f 1y ago
  How are H-1Bs comparable to nepotism?
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    Don't focus on the nepotism aspect specifically, but rather that job group in one distinct, identifiable population (my kid or H1Bs) grew at a far higher rate than for the general (not my kids or not H1Bs) employment market, despite the latter experiencing more absolute growth.
    - C-x_C-f 1y ago
      I still don't see what the issue is. Consider two scenarios: 1. H-1Bs get massively reduced over the next five years. Tech sector crisis ensues due to market shocks. Foreign workers decrease. American workers go up by 25% (~2.5M). 2. H-1B numbers stay as is. Tech sector relatively unperturbed. Foreign workers increase by 50% (~1.3M). American workers increase by 30% (~3M). Wouldn't you argue that 2 is preferable to 1? (I'm not saying that a crisis will happen if H-1Bs end, I'm just presenting two scenarios with different relative increases that I believe prove my point)
      - sokoloff 1y ago

jakozaur 1y ago

Does it apply to people who planned to start on Oct 1, 2025? With the current system, you must apply in April if you succeed in the lottery, and then you can start in a few months in October, once per year. Looks very uncomfortable for those who were about to relocate.

Izikiel43 1y ago
Looks like it: a) Pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), the entry into the United States of aliens as nonimmigrants to perform services in a specialty occupation under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000 — subject to the exceptions set forth in subsection (c) of this section. This restriction shall expire, absent extension, 12 months after the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Jalad 1y ago

Bsky thread which reported a bunch of details I didn't see in other outlets https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lz7ybcsn522n https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3l...

ivewonyoung 1y ago
> H-1B visa holders are REQUIRED to leave the country to renew their visas every few years This part is not exactly true. You can renew H1B indefinitely within the USA(every 3 years, need a pending Green card application from the 2nd extension onwards i.e after 6 years). However, if you leave the US for any reason you won't be able to re-enter the USA without a renewed visa stamp from a US embassy. The two exceptions are that you can visit Canada or Mexico for less than 30 days without triggering the visa stamp requirement.
- Freedom2 1y ago
  No, it's correct. The original comment said "to renew their visas". The visa expires on its expiration date, however the H1B status itself is extended. Hope this helps.

nis0s 1y ago

If the cost benefit analysis for employers still shows that H1-Bs are cheaper, how will this offset H1-B exploitation? My guess is that this will suppress STEM wages artificially to account for paying a one-time fee for an H1-B, but hiring someone for 1+ years at that suppressed rate will be cheaper. Employers will blame AI for decrease in STEM wages, of course. A complementary solution is to add the $100k fee, and to restrict H1-B per employer per year, or something like that.

alephnerd 1y ago
In 2025, the decision isn't hiring someone on an H1B versus a citizen - the cost is mostly a wash. The decision is hiring in the US (visa or citizen) versus hiring abroad. Given that a large number of EMs, PMs, Directors, and even VPs are on some sort of immigration or work visa, this makes it easier to incentivize you as an employer to move some of them back to India or Czechia to open a GCC. This is what has been happening for the past 5 years now. On top of that, vast swathes of STEM academia are dependent on H1B. You simply aren't going to find enough American citizens with a background in (say) battery chemistry to become a tenure track professor versus from Korea, Japan, or China. Now you basically created an incentive for large swathes of junior faculty in STEM subfields to return to Asia, leading to a massive reverse brain drain.
- nis0s 1y ago
  > The decision is hiring in the US (visa or citizen) versus hiring abroad. True, but there’s a balance that employers have to maintain to get some in-state advantages from local or state governments for job creation. That said, it makes more sense for America to get trainers or professors for niche subfields than actual workers so you can create homegrown talent, not sure why that isn’t done more.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > but there’s a balance that employers have to maintain to get some in-state advantages from local or state governments for job creation True! The issue is local, state, and federal governments gives limited benefits compared to CEE countries, Israel, India, and others who roll the red carpet with multi-year tax holidays, subsidizes, and targeted hiring pipelines. > makes more sense for America to get trainers or professors for niche subfields than actual workers so you can create homegrown talent How? They overwhelmingly came on H1Bs as well, not O-1s. This is why this is such a stupid approach, and is absolutely showing the hallmarks of a Stephen Miller policy. Interestingly, this seems to have overshadowed the Trump Gold Card and Platinum Card announcements (which part of me thinks was part of the reason this announcement happened).

utrechtNL 1y ago

Good. Skilled Indians/Chinese/Europeans should go back to their countries, build their own tech and compete with the US. People are smoking if they think “talents” would still want to stay in the US given this series of policies (i.e. recent cuts/restrictions on science funding, international students, and visas) from Trump government. This is a good time for EU to build its own digital economy.

alephnerd 1y ago
Pretty much. This is basically a free "Thousand Talents" program for much of the EU, India, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and others. This is ridiculously stupid given how vast swathes of industries we want to redevelop need talent from our partners in the EU, Japan, Korea (still opposed to Hyundai's visa shenanigans, but two wrongs don't make a right - also interesting how HN is so positive about this but so negative about that), etc
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
protocolture 1y ago
>Good. Skilled Indians/Chinese/Europeans should go back to their countries Agreed. Rest of the world needs to choke the USA and prevent our talent from improving the US. Theres no reason to try and help Trump.

moribvndvs 1y ago

Doesn't this just encourage companies to off-shore even harder, which is arguably more damaging to US tech workers than H-1Bs? I agree that the program is routinely abused by employers, but I’m not sure punishing foreign workers for this fact is the remediation we need.

cmxch 1y ago

Just rip out the entire 1965 Immigration Act root and stem along with its follow on provisions. Then replace with a points system with citizen impact factored into the equation. To handle the losses, have any firm and their downstream contractors and clients pay off displaced individuals many times over, with regional adjustments - such that it is cost prohibitively expensive to even think of bodyshopping people.

harbingerofdoom 1y ago

[dead]