JD Vance backs proposed new H-1B fee: Companies should ‘hire and train Americans’

Vice President JD Vance has thrown his weight down a projected $103,265 interest for employers filing cap-subject H-1B petitions.

In a 67-page filing connected Monday, the Department of Homeland Security projected the fee, little than 3 months aft a national judge struck down the administration's earlier $100,000 H-1B costs requirement. The H-1B is simply a visa classification that allows US employers to prosecute overseas workers successful specialty occupations, specified arsenic tech and finance.

Sharing The Wall Street Journal's X station astir the projected fee, Vance wrote connected Monday: "If an American corp needs workers, it should prosecute and train Americans."

The station had been viewed much than 2 cardinal times arsenic of property time.

If finalized, the interest would use to each cap-subject H-1B petitions. It would not use to cap-exempt H-1B petitions, which see overseas workers employed by nonprofit aliases governmental investigation organizations aliases acquisition institutions.

The yearly gross collected from these petitions, which the DHS projected successful its filing to beryllium astir $8.8 billion, would support immigration-related activities crossed respective national agencies, including US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Justice Department's migration courts, the State Department, and the Labor Department.

DHS said successful the filing that H-1B petitioners — companies that record for the visa connected behalf of their overseas labor — are "willing and able" to salary an further fee.

It besides said that if the caller interest were imposed, US employers would beryllium little apt to prosecute an H-1B worker complete a "qualified and highly-skilled American worker" unless they person "no replacement for obtaining the specialized skills of the employee."

This is the latest effort from the Trump management to reshape the way overseas workers return to activity successful the US.

Last September, the Trump management announced it would enforce a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, a move that sparked confusion and chaos for hundreds of thousands of overseas workers successful the country. But successful June, a national judge successful the US District Court for Massachusetts ruled the move unlawful and struck it down.

The management is besides straining the student-to-skilled-worker pipeline. In July, DHS finalized a norm limiting the first admittance play for international students connected F-1 visas to 4 years.