Trump Just Killed H-1B Visas With a $100K Fee

Trump's Friday afternoon ambush caught everyone with their pants down. The executive order went from $1,570 in filing fees to $104,000 overnight - I know the exact numbers because I had to explain to my CTO why our Q4 hiring budget just exploded. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed this represents the largest H-1B fee increase in program history, while tech policy experts call it economic terrorism designed to make international hiring impossible for anyone who isn't Google. The Immigration Impact Blog breaks down sector-by-sector impacts, and Startup Genome's policy analysis shows devastating effects on startup ecosystems. Tech industry lobbying groups are scrambling to respond, while immigration law firms report unprecedented client panic.

Even Google Workers Are Pissed

Google employees protested outside their New York offices Tuesday, which tells you everything. When Google workers - who have basically unlimited job security - are taking to the streets, you know this policy hits different.

"One of the world's most powerful companies refuses to stand up for its workers," their signs read. And they're right. Google can absorb $100K visa fees like it's coffee money, but they're still scared to publicly oppose Trump. The Alphabet Workers Union has been organizing these protests while Silicon Valley tech leaders remain conspicuously silent on the policy. If Google won't fight this, what chance do the rest of us have?

The Math That'll Make Your CFO Cry

Business Insider's analysis lists 20 companies that are completely fucked by this. Amazon and Meta top the list, but honestly? They'll survive. It's everyone else who's screwed.

Here's math that'll make your CFO shit bricks: that startup that hired like 8 or 10 international engineers last year? Their visa fees just went from maybe $15K total to over a million bucks. I watched this exact scenario play out Friday afternoon when our Series A startup's Slack lit up with panicked PMs running budget calculations. That's not a budget line item anymore - that's "should we still be in business?" money.

Startups Are Dead in the Water

Forget the big companies - they'll figure it out. The real casualties are startups who just lost access to international talent entirely. If you're burning through Series A money and your best engineer candidate needs an H-1B, tough shit. That visa fee is now like... what, 5-10% of your entire fucking funding round? The National Venture Capital Association estimates this could reduce startup international hiring by 80%, while startup immigration lawyers report their phones haven't stopped ringing with panicked founders.

Immigration lawyers are saying Trump wants to prioritize "higher-skilled, better-paid" H-1B workers. Translation: only Google-sized companies can afford this bullshit. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.

Other Countries Are Already Licking Their Chops

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves jumped on this immediately, basically saying "hey, we're not insane like America" and rolling out the red carpet for international tech workers. Canada's probably updating their Express Entry website as I type this.

This is how you kill American tech dominance in one executive order. All those brilliant engineers who would have started companies in Silicon Valley? They're going to build them in London, Toronto, and Berlin instead. Economic policy researchers warn this could trigger the largest tech talent exodus since the dot-com crash, while innovation indexes show competing countries already gaining ground. And we'll wonder why innovation moved elsewhere.

Here's the thing nobody's talking about - I've seen startups die because they couldn't afford visa fees, and this just made it like 20 times worse. You think paying almost a hundred grand more than Friday is just "policy"? It's a death sentence for any company that isn't Google or Meta. USCIS H-1B specialty occupations policy shows the devastating impact on smaller companies, while CNN business analysis of H-1B fees breaks down which companies will be hit hardest.

Every Good Engineer I Know Is Leaving

Look, Time Magazine can talk about "strategic disasters" all they want, but I'm watching it happen in real time. My Slack DMs are full of engineers asking about Toronto jobs because they can't afford to stay here anymore. CNN's immigration crackdown analysis shows the exodus has already started, while Tech industry reports document mass relocations to Canada and Europe. Canada's Express Entry program statistics show record applications from U.S. tech workers, while European Blue Card data reflects increasing skilled migration from America.

Most H-1B workers are Indian engineers - the backbone of every AI team, every senior data scientist, every architect who's been carrying your company's technical debt for years. Canada's offering them citizenship in 2 years. We're offering them a $100K bill. Immigration lawyer analysis details the massive talent drain implications, while workforce studies show the disproportionate impact on AI and data science teams.

The Only Winners? Laid-Off Engineers Already Here

Here's the weird part - White House clarifications say the fee only hits new petitions, not renewals. Translation: if you got laid off from Meta last month, you're suddenly worth $100K more than a fresh CS grad.

Something like 140,000+ tech workers got shitcanned since January - I know because I've been tracking layoff spreadsheets since Meta started the bloodbath. Now those same engineers who couldn't get callbacks in February are getting LinkedIn messages from recruiters who suddenly realized that hiring someone already here beats paying Trump's insane immigration tax. I got three InMails this morning from companies that ghosted me six months ago.

Healthcare Tech Is Completely Screwed

And don't get me started on healthcare tech. There's doctor shortages everywhere, but nobody knows if docs get exemptions from Trump's fee. Meanwhile, every healthcare AI startup I know depends on international ML engineers who cost way less than a hundred grand per year total, let alone in visa fees.

TCS and Infosys Don't Give a Shit

Weirdly, Indian IT giants seem totally fine with this. TCS, Infosys, Wipro - they've all been moving away from the H-1B mill anyway. They're basically telling their competitors "have fun paying Trump's tax while we hire locally."

Makes sense - they saw this coming and adapted. Your average Silicon Valley startup that was counting on hiring 3 international engineers next quarter? They're fucked. The big consulting firms who already pivoted their model? They're probably buying champagne.

We Just Told the World's Best Engineers to Fuck Off

Here's what really pisses me off - I spent like 10 years watching Silicon Valley recruit the world's smartest people to build the future here. Last month I watched our senior ML engineer (Indian H-1B, maybe 7 or 8 years experience?) single-handedly fix a production outage that could have cost us serious SLA money. He worked like 16 hours straight debugging some race condition in our inference pipeline that three other engineers couldn't figure out. Now we're literally putting up this massive toll booth and wondering why Toronto's AI scene is exploding.

Legal experts are calling this "legally unsound" and promising court fights. Look, maybe they'll win, but by the time lawyers sort this out, every good engineer will have already taken a job in Canada where they don't treat talent like criminals.