A bipartisan group of House lawmakers warned that the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B workers would harm American competitiveness and block startups from recruiting high skilled workers.
The lawmakers urged President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a letter Tuesday to work with Congress on bipartisan reforms to the H-1B visa program, which serves as a key talent pipeline for the tech sector. Both US allies and competitor countries have sought to make themselves more attractive to skilled talent in the wake of the fee, they said.
“The recently announced H-1B visa changes will undermine the efforts of the very catalysts of our innovation economy—startups and small technology firms— that cannot absorb costs at the same level as larger firms,” they wrote.
The lawmakers joined American businesses in pushing Trump to drop the fee. The US Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit last week to block the $100,000 charge, arguing that it will harm US employers and be a boon to the country’s economic rivals. Some Congressional Republicans concerned about physician shortages have also pressed the administration for exemptions from the fee for health care workers.
The letter was signed by Reps. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.), Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), and Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.). Salazar is the co-author of a sweeping bipartisan immigration reform proposal that was re-introduced in July.
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