NEW YORK/BENGALURU, Sept 22 (Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s new visa fees for overseas staff drew widespread condemnation from expertise executives, entrepreneurs and traders throughout social media, with only a few outliers, as many noticed it as a serious blow to a sector that contributed tens of millions to his re-election marketing campaign.
Know-how executives and traders stated the brand new charges may add tens of millions of {dollars} in prices for firms and disproportionately harm startups, which can not be capable to afford visas as a part of their technique.
In a complicated set of bulletins starting late Friday, Trump and different White Home officers stated they’d cost corporations $100,000 apiece for H1-B employee non permanent employment visas, utilized by many tech majors, together with Amazon.com, Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
Many criticized the transfer and the chaotic roll-out that required the White Home to make clear the hefty charges could be charged simply as soon as, not yearly, and they might not apply to existing holders, together with those that occurred to be abroad on the time of the announcement.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Meta, Microsoft and Amazon didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Most executives on the tech giants, lots of whom have cast shut relationships with the Trump White Home since his return to workplace, haven’t commented publicly on the proposal, which may drastically change their system of attracting expertise from international locations comparable to India and China. However others weighed in.
“America’s edge has all the time been that we entice sensible, bold folks from in every single place,” stated Esther Crawford, a former Twitter govt and investor who now works as director of product administration at Meta, in line with her LinkedIn profile.
“Excessive-skilled immigrants don’t take from us, they construct with us. A few of the finest colleagues in my profession have been H-1B holders chasing their very own American dream.”
The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration on numerous ranges, together with stepped-up border safety and raids which have largely focused lower-skilled staff, lots of whom are undocumented migrants.
Most just lately, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided a Georgia battery plant owned by South Korea’s Hyundai Motor that angered officials in Seoul, who’ve raised questions in regards to the relationship with america.
Economists at Berenberg warned that the proposed visa price hike may additional burden a U.S. labor market already weakened by the lingering results of Trump-era commerce insurance policies. Whereas synthetic intelligence could assist alleviate some staffing shortages, analysts cautioned that rising prices may stress firms and finally have an effect on their purchasers.
“By making it very costly for firms to draw overseas expertise, and by forcing some worldwide college students to depart the nation after commencement, the mind drain will weigh closely on productiveness,” they wrote.
CHAOS AT AIRPORTS
The late Friday announcement induced chaos for vacationers, a few of whom obtained off planes fairly than go abroad whereas others raced dwelling on the recommendation of their firms earlier than the White Home clarified the order.
“My coronary heart goes out to all of the households and people anxious over their futures following the abrupt and chaotic announcement of H-1B visa modifications,” stated Andrew Ng, founding father of DeepLearningAI, in a publish on LinkedIn. “America needs to be working to draw extra expert expertise, not create uncertainty that turns them away.”
The change met with some help from prime executives, together with IBM Vice Chairman Gary Cohn, who served as head of the White Home Nationwide Financial Council within the first Trump administration. He advised CBS Information the brand new charges as a “good thought” that will assist usher in workers with high-value skillsets.
Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings shared an identical view in a publish on X, saying the upper value would imply visas could be used just for “very excessive worth jobs” and supply extra certainty for individuals who have them.
However David Seidman, the top of platform safety at fintech agency Plaid, predicted on LinkedIn that “at the least one” of the Massive Tech names would cease hiring for these jobs in america and construct out their footprint in India or Canada.
Reporting by Chris Prentice in New York and Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Modifying by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty
