The H-1B visa simply received an entire helluvalot costlier: In the course of the pre-weekend Friday information dumb, President Donald Trump made some main bulletins about our system for expert immigration.
Underneath his newest modifications, you possibly can primarily purchase your approach in. Foreigners (who’re vetted) might pay $1 million for a “gold card” that can enable them U.S. residency; firms might pay $2 million for the company equal, which might enable them the power to sponsor foreigners. “The principle factor is we will have nice individuals coming in and they are going to be paying,” stated the president. “We will take that cash and we will be lowering taxes and we will be lowering debt.”
However on the identical time, a brand new annual price of $100,000 will likely be levied on every H-1B visa applicant going ahead, which can function an enormous deterrent. Some variety of the roughly 500,000 individuals at present within the U.S. with H-1Bs—high-skill visas utilized by tech staff, medical staff, and different professionals working within the fields they acquired levels in—would have been dissuaded from coming right here had the brand new system been in place. For firms hiring new expertise, this price will likely be an enormous barrier to sponsoring international staff—which seems to be the purpose.
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“The corporate must determine…is the particular person useful sufficient to have a $100,000-a-year fee to the federal government, or they need to head dwelling, and they need to go rent an American,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick informed the press.
Indian nationals are at present the largest beneficiaries of this system. Greater than 70 p.c of H-1Bs go to Indians, and 12 p.c going to Chinese language individuals. Roughly 1 / 4 of the physicians working within the U.S. are foreign-born.
This will likely be completely devastating within the medical subject.
~30% residents are worldwide medical graduates & ~10k of 43k residency spots are stuffed by docs with H1-B visas.
Beforehand the h-1B price was <$5,000.
No hospital pays a $100k price for a $55k resident wage. https://t.co/TVywuoBT18
— Nick Mark MD (@nickmmark) September 19, 2025
The Trump Administration’s proclamation that slaps a $100,000 price on H-1Bs cites a flawed examine from the left wing Financial Coverage Institute as justification.
The examine claims that employers underpay their H-1B staff by 36% as a result of it intentionally overlooks the truth that… pic.twitter.com/dPZywJ1yO3
— Sam Peak (@SpeakSamuel) September 20, 2025
Firms in lots of industries will in all probability reply to this shift by offshoring extra of their workforces or counting on contract staff. (For the medical business, this would possibly not actually work. Greater shortages would possibly simply turn out to be a reality of life.) As with many Trump insurance policies, the results will not be felt instantly—present visa holders are grandfathered in—however the medium-term results will be, and it is going to be exhausting for companies to anticipate what hiring ought to appear to be in future. Will this coverage, in truth, be reversed after Trump’s time period ends? Does this imply the pipeline will dry up between every now and then, or will aspirants proceed to financial institution on H-1Bs being accessible to them a couple of years from now? Is there in truth sufficient American demand—and talent—for roles in these industries?
Scenes from New York: When operating for state Meeting in 2022, mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani stated he wished to scale back the New York Police Division (NYPD) “by 1,300 officers by way of attrition.” He additionally referred to as for “instantly” ending police extra time, freezing hiring, canceling new officer courses and “institut[ing] a moratorium on all new gear purchases.”
“We won’t reform our approach out of a racist police system that is working precisely as designed—as a way of management over Black & brown New Yorkers,” he added. This all appeared beneath a “Defund the NYPD” heading.
“We have to dramatically curtail the facility and presence of the NYPD. Meaning chopping $3 billion from the NYPD price range and reinvesting these financial savings in well being, housing, and neighborhood companies.” The positioning’s “queer liberation” part referred to as for an finish to “police harassment of queer individuals by decriminalizing intercourse work, defunding the NYPD, divesting from jails and prisons, and reinvesting these financial savings in acceptable social companies.”
QUICK HITS
- “The UK, Canada and Australia formally acknowledged Palestine as a state Sunday, a big shift in international coverage and a step away from their alignment with the USA, with a number of different European nations and U.S. allies set to observe swimsuit this week,” stories NBC.
- “The Trump administration unveiled a brand new crackdown Friday on journalists on the Pentagon, saying it is going to require them to pledge they will not collect any data—even unclassified—that hasn’t been expressly approved for launch, and can revoke the press credentials of those that don’t obey,” stories The Washington Put up. “Underneath the coverage, the Pentagon might revoke press passes for anybody it deems a safety risk. Possessing confidential or unauthorized data, beneath the brand new guidelines, can be grounds for a journalist’s press cross to be revoked.”
- “I’ve had so many individuals ask, ‘Do you’re feeling anger towards this man? Like, do you wish to search the dying penalty?'” stated Erika Kirk, widow of the assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk, in an interview with The New York Instances. “I will be trustworthy. I informed our lawyer, I would like the federal government to determine this. I don’t want that man’s blood on my ledger. As a result of once I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye fixed? Is that how we do it?’ And that retains me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?”
- Fourth boat attacked:
On my Orders, the Secretary of Warfare ordered a deadly kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Group conducting narcotrafficking within the USSOUTHCOM space of duty. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was…
— Trump Fact Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) September 19, 2025
Relatedly:
The clandestine deployment of elite U.S. Particular Operations forces to the Caribbean means that strikes or commando raids inside Venezuela itself could also be within the workshttps://t.co/YwtqjKBlrZ
— Eric Schmitt (@EricSchmittNYT) September 20, 2025
