[HN Gopher] Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee
___________________________________________________________________
Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee
Author : naturalmovement
Score : 101 points
Date : 2026-06-09 00:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.alaskasnewssource.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.alaskasnewssource.com)
| alephnerd wrote:
| This is great news for healthcare, academia, and engineering
| subdisciplines that don't have the margins to support a $100K per
| application fee.
|
| That said, Trump's announcement has done lasting damage to tech
| hiring in the US because it's set a price floor for opening a GCC
| (Global Capacity Center), which subsidizes in the CEE (Central
| and Eastern EU States), Israel, and India can outcompete most of
| the US excluding the Bay and NYC where the preexisting
| ecosystem's network effect negates it's impact.
| snihalani wrote:
| What's a GCC/CEE?
| jojobas wrote:
| It's awful news for all of these, it vacates any attempts to
| force these industries to make themselves attractive for
| Americans.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| So your argument is we have to give American jobs to foreigners
| here in America or they'll take them overseas? Pardon me if I'm
| not convinced
| amazingamazing wrote:
| Why can't Americans do these jobs?
| seibelj wrote:
| They post the jobs in physical newspaper classifieds in the
| middle of nowhere, and do not post the job on their normal
| website, because if they posted a real job they would get
| hundreds of applicants immediately. It's a fraud but it was
| tolerated until recently
| genxy wrote:
| Because they were laid off?
| curtisf wrote:
| The H1B visa is explicitly designed for high skill (high
| paying) jobs which companies have (supposedly) demonstrated
| they cannot find enough citizen workers.
|
| There are much simpler mechanisms to making that would make the
| enforcement mechanism more effective without destroying the
| economy, like prioritizing them by salary instead of randomly.
|
| You could also just have a more proactive government which
| punishes businesses for abusing the visa category.
|
| "Immigrants taking good jobs" isn't an immigrant problem, it's
| a big-business problem
| JCTheDenthog wrote:
| >There are much simpler mechanisms to making that would make
| the enforcement mechanism more effective without destroying
| the economy, like prioritizing them by salary instead of
| randomly.
|
| The Trump admin already did that too:
|
| https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-changes-
| pro...
| epistasis wrote:
| Anti-immigration policy blocks them from being Americans.
|
| I know an awful lot of skilled people that live in the US, pay
| high taxes, and for whose lives have been thrown into disarray
| by backwards, anti-immigration policy like this illegal $100k
| fee, but it's just the beginning of the ways that anti-
| immigration policy is being used to make the US far weaker,
| just in order for pyrrhic harm to immigrants. I'm pissed about
| it.
| JCTheDenthog wrote:
| >Anti-immigration policy blocks them from being Americans.
|
| Yes, because the citizens of a country (through their elected
| representatives) have absolute control over who they choose
| to allow into their country. Even blocking a brilliant
| surgeon or inventor, if they so choose. There is no moral
| right to come to America (or any other country).
| epistasis wrote:
| Saying "I have absolute control" is not a justification for
| making bad decisions that hurt the US. Furthermore, it was
| never a question of the US had a right to make these
| decisions, of course it does.
|
| Do you find the argument "I have the right to make any
| decision I want therefor it justifies bad decisions"
| convincing? I sure don't.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Bad decision for who? Their best interest is not your
| interest, no matter how you browbeat them.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >Saying "I have absolute control" is not a justification
| for making bad decisions that hurt the US.
|
| How is it a bad decision that will hurt the US? Can you
| make that argument on its merits? No one doubts that
| there isn't that one genius here or there
|
| Last year, right here on HN I saw a headline where the
| "powers that be" wanted to increase Canada's population
| to 100 million (they currently sit at 30ish million). Is
| that a good decision for Canada? Where the fertility rate
| is so low population is shrinking? Like, do they need
| another 65 million people? Are there 65 million jobs
| going undone in Canada right now? Jobs that desperately
| need doing? The plan's the same for the United States,
| even if no one was careless enough to blare a similar
| headline from trumpets.
| roarcher wrote:
| > I know an awful lot of skilled people that live in the US
|
| If they already live in the US, they're not applying for an
| H1B.
| epistasis wrote:
| That's false. You can apply for an H1B while in the US
| (unless there has been another recent and random change to
| long standing policy for no reason except to make lives
| miserable).
|
| H1B renewals are also common, and happen within the US.
| reactordev wrote:
| We can, that's not the purpose of this.
| JCTheDenthog wrote:
| They can, which is why many companies do the bare minimum
| malicious compliance to claim thet they attempted to hire
| Americans for these jobs. Things like ads in the local
| newspaper that 99% of qualified Americans will never see:
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/h1b-job-ads-green-cards-targeted-im...
| pton_xd wrote:
| Those newspaper tech job ads have been going on for at least
| the last... 20 years. When you see those, the company already
| has the role filled, they just need a justification for the
| visa. "We tried to find a US worker but failed!" Which
| honestly may or may not be true, I think the ad is just
| standard procedure at this point.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Fraud and dishonesty is the SOP. Whole thing needs to be
| burned down.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| If you are willing to discuss and argue with arguments, I
| can prove that the whole critique of H1B is nothing more
| than racism, hatred, and bigotry, from the people who are
| worst and least qualified to talk about the subject
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Surely the malicious compliant job ads are proof positive
| that everything is above board.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| job ads in local paper are requirement by the DOL.
|
| it is a goodwill compliance, not malicious. You are again
| just being racist and uneducated about the subject and
| reasons for that requirement
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| We have very different ideas of what 'goodwill' looks
| like.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| have you considered asking DOL (staffed by White
| Americans) and Congress (staffed by White Americans) why
| they have that requirement, instead of blaming foreigners
| ?
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Why do you assume everyone who works for the government
| is white?
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| I'm not assuming, I am speaking from knowledge. Congress
| has always been mostly white, as do DOL leaders, this is
| especially true for current administration
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| So your position is that it's 'white people's fault'?
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| the newspaper ad is not for H1B, it is for PERM process,
| which is different.
|
| Second, the local newspaper requirement is created by the
| Dept of Labor itself, specifically to protect local workers
| in the area where Labor Market Test is being done!!!
|
| It is not malicious compliance by firms, it is goodwill
| compliance by firms, to whatever DOL requires them to do.
| Dont like it? ask your DOL why.
|
| Third, paper ads create audit trail that DOL wants, they dont
| recognize e-boards like linkedin/indeed as their audit trail
| is considered "soft"
| Wobbles42 wrote:
| Being deported if you get fired is a basic job requirement.
| Keeps people in line.
|
| Americans can't compete with that.
| ericmay wrote:
| Well they _can_ compete with that.
|
| Being fired means you lose healthcare and much needed
| benefits and of course a paycheck and all of that stuff,
| right? If you're going to take this wildly cynical approach
| you should at least do a more proper comparison....
| lmm wrote:
| > Being fired means you lose healthcare and much needed
| benefits and of course a paycheck and all of that stuff,
| right?
|
| I think there's some law that lets you stay on health
| insurance for a few months at least, and you can save up as
| a countermeasure to the loss of the paycheck. Bad as it is
| it's not comparable to getting deported after a couple of
| months.
| ericmay wrote:
| Hard to say how directly they can compare, and it
| probably depends on the individual situation and of
| course their line of work and other such items. In the
| woe-is-me olympics they both seem pretty awful and, one
| might even say, competitive in terms of how awful they
| are. Maybe being deported means you go back to France or
| Canada or something.
| usefulcat wrote:
| > I think there's some law that lets you stay on health
| insurance for a few months at least
|
| Yes, but often you will have to pay the full cost in
| order to do so, which will be difficult for many people
| after having lost their source of income..
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| I think forcing this comparison shows a lack of empathy for
| how compromised of a position the H1B really is.
|
| If I lose my job I have unemployment insurance, cobra
| benefits, personal savings, and I don't require another
| employer to sponsor my visa. If I lose my job the most
| likely outcome is I find another one after searching a few
| months.
|
| If someone on an H1B visa loses their job the most likely
| outcome is they are forced to leave the country.
| ericmay wrote:
| Well, truthfully I don't really care all that much about
| it any more than I do any other problems that people
| generally experience. It's even more tragic that someone
| has an H1B means other folks don't - aren't their lives
| even worse for not having the opportunity that someone
| else does? Can the H1B visa holder even compete with the
| person denied the H1B?
|
| The reason I wrote this comment is because the OP itself
| decided it was warranted with this cynical comment to
| suggest Americans don't work hard because oh if they get
| fired well they just find another job but the H1B visa
| holder gets _gasp_ deported. But this itself diminishes
| the stresses and experience of those who _don 't_ find
| that other job, or _don 't_ find that replacement tech
| job, or any other devastating affects that someone
| experiences from job loss. Yea you might have a few
| months of COBRA benefits, but then what? You might not
| even have any savings because of some emergency that
| occurred. What's worse, being deported after a couple of
| months or becoming homeless in America? What if you're
| deported to Australia or Japan? Why are you or others
| assuming a happy ending for someone laid off in America
| but assuming the worst case scenario for an H1B visa
| holder and then comparing the two in that way?
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| Yeah, sounds like your situation is insecure too. That
| really sucks.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| First, I think the H1B does need genuine reform to keep the big
| companies from gaming the lottery system.
|
| Having said that, I'm not sure banning H1Bs or immigrants in
| general is going to help American workers. Take tech for
| instance. Many tech leaders are immigrants. If they hasn't
| taken in the Jensen Huang's, Sergei Brin's, Sundar Pichai,
| etc... the companies they lead and jobs they created would be
| elsewhere. It's amazing how immigrants have shaped the US tech
| scene:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2026/06/03/immig...
|
| Second, when you ban immigrants/H1B, companies get around the
| ban by outsourcing to foreign countries.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2017/06/10/if-yo...
| Dig1t wrote:
| They raise the cost of housing and suppress wages. The people
| who benefit from immigration are the billionaire class.
|
| Sundar Pichai is a terrible example, he presided over the
| enshittification of Google and led the company basically
| nowhere. Satya Nadella is a similar story for Microsoft. The
| real reason Google is turning around on AI is because the
| founders quietly returned and have been leading the charge
| internally to save Google.
|
| >the companies they lead and jobs they created would be
| elsewhere.
|
| 1/2 of Google's founders were Americans born in the US and
| the search industry already existed before Google was
| founded. I don't think there's a real argument that the
| search industry would have been founded anywhere else other
| than in the US. There's virtually no chance that had Sergei
| Brin's family stayed in Moscow, that Google would have been
| founded in Moscow and all of Google's jobs would today
| somehow exist in Russia. Same goes for Nvidia and all of
| these other companies. Silicon Valley was already a booming
| hub which had invented almost all of the foundational tech
| that today's computing industry was built on. It was built by
| Americans and regardless would have continued to be built by
| Americans.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| "It was built by Americans and regardless would have
| continued to be built by Americans."
|
| The xenophobic ignorance of this sentence is breathtaking.
| America, of all places, is a nation built precisely by
| immigrants.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Settlers not immigrants. Immigrants come to a country and
| people that already exist. Settlers build anew.
| peyton wrote:
| Refugees is maybe more accurate when it comes to country.
| We sprouted out of the social scene that was displaced by
| the English Civil War.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| And the wars of religion generally. Eg, the Dutch in
| Pennsylvania and hugenots.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Historically then, unless you are a Native American, you
| are an immigrant.
|
| Perhaps it's time for to GTFO? Is that the message?
|
| Hacker News really resembles a MAGA rally at times
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| When the plymouth colony was established the amerindian
| population was greatly reduced due to disease that swept
| through <5 years before. The colonists found many empty
| villages.
|
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5xp7B7ISI1DymhuoGuoN_
| WWl...
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The 45th president was supposed to deliver that reform. Then
| they went all out and... commissioned a study. Then they did
| nothing, once the puppet masters let it be know they didn't
| want to lose their servile work force chained to their visas
| with a green card dangled in front of them.
| dboreham wrote:
| TFA is about teachers in Alaska. I'm guessing from a brief skim
| that no Americans want to be school teachers in Alaska for the
| money local school boards are offering.
|
| This actually highlights two dumb things about the USA:
| prejudice against immigrants, and unwillingness to fund
| education.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| This sounds like a self-correcting problem, if you don't
| allow immigration. Schools will have to pay more for
| teachers, which will raise salaries for native born teachers,
| instead of paying a lower rate to someone on a temporary work
| visa.
|
| The matter is a little more complicated than that, because
| Alaska also has some of the nation's most stringent licensure
| requirements with no alternative routes for high-demand low-
| supply subject area teachers. You could probably relax those
| artificial barriers to employment and get more Alaskans
| teaching without raising the salary as much as if you kept
| the licensure requirements. You could also promise student
| debt relief for teachers who serve in rural areas for a
| certain length of time.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| >student debt relief
|
| It already exists its called PSLF
|
| Alaska is already one of the top states for educator pay,
| and as you know how US government has continioualy failed
| to solve problems by throwing more money at it, you know
| more money will simply cause more general inflation and
| will never solve it.
|
| US already spends more for education with worse results
| trelane wrote:
| > unwillingness to fund education.
|
| "The United States spent $15,500 per FTE student at the
| elementary/secondary level, which was 38 percent higher than
| the average of OECD countries3 reporting data ($11,300). The
| United States had the fifth highest expenditures per FTE
| student at the elementary/secondary level in 2019 after
| Luxembourg, Norway ($18,000), and Austria and the Republic of
| Korea ($15,900 each)."
|
| Source:
| https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-
| exp...
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Because in America, the boomers' retirement accounts are
| partially funded by insane college tuition (through insane
| college services and textbooks), so college has essentially
| become a guaranteed debt trap that gives you a lottery ticket
| to maybe be in the top 1%.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Maybe there aren't a ton of people in Alaska?
| variety8675 wrote:
| There must be a better way to prevent the consulting firms from
| abusing this program
| alephnerd wrote:
| There are multiple [0], but the announcement of this policy
| helped overshadow the announcement of the Trump Gold Card at
| the exact same time [1].
|
| [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45312908
|
| [1] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-
| proclamati...
| JCTheDenthog wrote:
| Rigorous examinations for English fluency and for competency in
| their alleged field of expertise would be a good start. I have
| several H1B coworkers in the US who barely speak intelligible
| English, and who barely understand normal conversation let
| alone anything technical. A blatant example of this that I
| experienced recently being that several of them could not
| understand that just because a method in C# is asynchronous
| does not mean it executes out of order.
| cguess wrote:
| This is a hiring issue, not a legal one. The US has no
| official language, and no language tests, so requiring
| English in law would be dicey to put it mildly. What if I'm
| hiring someone specifically to work at a Spanish language
| news outlet?
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| The US has an official language, and there are now language
| tests for some occupations
| bee_rider wrote:
| The executive branch has been instructed to act like we
| have an official language, but Congress hasn't passed any
| law on the matter.
| DANmode wrote:
| > This is a hiring issue, not a legal one.
|
| When the law specifically dictates stuff like the talent of
| the person, I'm not convinced you're correct.
| panny wrote:
| >The US has no official language
|
| Oh but it does. And it's English,
|
| https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/06/2025-0
| 3...
| free652 wrote:
| I dont think an EO can do that, so at most just executive
| agencies. Meaning the 2 other branches can ignore it.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's just an Executive Order. Executive Orders are
| instructions to the executive branch, not the country
| itself (obviously, the president doesn't have that
| ability). Congress hasn't passed a law establishing an
| official language in the US.
| parrellel wrote:
| I don't believe Trump's wacko EOs are binding law. Like,
| the Gulf of Mexico is still the Gulf of Mexico. The DoD
| is still the DoD.
|
| No reason to give the fascist LARPers the respect. Just
| don't give the poor clerk forced to regurgitate the junk
| a hard time.
| newfriend wrote:
| or DACA?
| JCTheDenthog wrote:
| >What if I'm hiring someone specifically to work at a
| Spanish language news outlet?
|
| Having actually worked at a Spanish language news outlet
| before (1 of 4 tv and radio stations in the office I was
| doing IT help desk work in), I can tell you that every
| single employee spoke English somewhere on the level of
| very good to near native fluency. As it turns out, knowing
| English (or the native language of whatever country you're
| in) is an incredible value-multiplier for almost every job
| position imaginable.
|
| As far as language issues at my current job goes, it turns
| out once you hire a manager that speaks both Hindi and
| English (or Marathi and English, or Bengali and English,
| you get the picture) it doesn't matter much if the H1Bs he
| hires barely speak English because he can just start
| shouting at them in Hindi if they don't understand (even if
| several native English speakers are in the meeting too).
| cguess wrote:
| Again, this is a hiring issue, not a legal one. You want
| to make it against the law for your boss to hire bad
| managers?
| naturalmovement wrote:
| EO 14224 designates English as the official language of the
| US.
| generj wrote:
| Which is clearly illegal.
|
| Congress would need to declare any official language(s).
| Moreover, by treaty and law (NALA of 1990) obligations to
| Native American tribes there must be more languages than
| merely English.
| svachalek wrote:
| The H-1B visa is specifically for hiring "highly
| specialized" workers. Lack of the supposed skills that let
| them across the border is in fact a legal issue.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| H1Bs are not hired for their knowledge of english,
| however you can define it. They are hired for specialized
| occupational skills
| naturalmovement wrote:
| Skills which, with very few exceptions, are conducted in
| English.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| You don't need to be Shakespeare to do specialized job
| that's first
|
| Second most visa applicants already get tested on their
| English skill when they apply for Visa, for example,
| universities require English proficiency for F1 visa
| using GRE exam
|
| And why do you think you are better than an employer in
| assessing required English proficiency of an employee
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >for example, universities require English proficiency
| for F1 visa using GRE exam
|
| Why would the universities fail them on these exams, when
| it would mean losing out on that sweet, sweet tuition
| money?
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| universities do not administrer GRE, you are too
| uneducated to critique
| gmueckl wrote:
| But Visa applications need to prove English proficiency
| already. So it's somehow neither here nor there.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Many of the people I grew up with "barely speak intelligible
| English". Communication is important and the easiest way to
| fix that is to bring people from your linguistic group to be
| a coworker....
| panny wrote:
| >Rigorous examinations for English fluency and for competency
| in their alleged field of expertise would be a good start.
|
| I have a good friend who came in as H1B and is now a citizen.
| I have also worked with many H1Bs who were absolutely
| terrible and definitely shouldn't be in the country. What
| I've noticed is that the key difference seems to be which
| country you are from. He is from a first world country with
| education standards. The ones who were no good came from the
| third world where fake diplomas are for sale cheap. It won't
| matter what qualifications we screen for if the third world
| happily prints up those fake qualifications for a small fee.
| I was sent so many candidates to interview who knew
| absolutely nothing, but they shamelessly put the proper
| keywords on their resume.
| pastel8739 wrote:
| > I have several H1B coworkers in the US who barely speak
| intelligible English, and who barely understand normal
| conversation let alone anything technical.
|
| English fluency is certainly not a requirement for fluency in
| any technical field. Perhaps you mean that they cannot
| understand _your_ descriptions of technical topics, though
| JCTheDenthog wrote:
| Seeing as my Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Mexican,
| French Canadian, and Brazilian coworkers don't seem to have
| these issues with me I don't think the issue is with my
| explanations.
| sometimes_all wrote:
| Funny, when I was in the US, my Russian, Ukrainian,
| Chinese, Mexican, French, British, and 99% of the
| American coworkers had absolutely zero issues with my
| Indian accent, except that one American guy who would ask
| me to keep repeating even though the rest of the room had
| already understood and processed what I said.
|
| The problem likely lies deeper than just the accents; and
| by the way, the English requirement (including a verbal
| test) is already set in place for most of the workers.
| The regular halfway-decent ones will likely already have
| TOEFL scores hovering around at minimum the high 100s,
| and in the non-university hiring pipelines I have seen,
| the English/ESL tests seem to be common if you are not
| from an English-speaking country, so if you are seeing
| people where nobody can understand what they are saying,
| you need to take a better look at your employer's hiring
| practices.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Any legal barrier will just be cheated around.
| anon291 wrote:
| Only allow American firms to use H1-B. Most of the H1-B abuse
| is from the Indian 'WITCH' companies. Why foreign firms are
| allowed to hire foreign workers in the US is beyond me. For
| training / administration, there should be another visa type
| which does not confer family benefits and cannot progress to
| greencard or whatever.
|
| BUT... at the end of the day, the solution must be passed by
| congress. Have we all forgotten about Congress since they
| stopped doing anything?
| chupchap wrote:
| All of them have US subsidiaries and Cognizant is an US
| listed company.
| anon291 wrote:
| I mean ... Come on we know what's really going on here.
| naturalmovement wrote:
| There is no abuse. That's why tech companies recruit for
| software positions in the back pages of a gay mag in Salt Lake
| City and require resumes sent by postal mail.
| ralph84 wrote:
| Two rules:
|
| 1. No subcontracting. Visa recipients must work directly for
| the visa sponsor.
|
| 2. No layoffs. Any company that does a mass layoff is banned
| from sponsoring new visas for 5 years.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Disqualify consulting firms from "hiring" H-1Bs. You should be
| employed directly by the business needing the skilled guest
| worker.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I thought locking down H1Bs actually had bipartisan support?
|
| How can you argue there aren't enough jobs, and support H1Bs to
| fill jobs?
|
| I can see Alaska's case since encouraging people to move there
| very well may be a requirement, but surely there's somewhere
| between $0 and $100k that would convince someone to move there.
| fhfbfbtbt wrote:
| You're putting words in people's mouths. The fact that people
| oppose this solution doesn't mean they disagree with the
| problem. We oppose it because it's stupid; it's the first
| solution that a dim-witted eight-year-old would've come up
| with.
|
| The program needs to be reformed so it only applies to people
| with skills that genuinely cannot be found domestically.
|
| Given the difference in expected engineering salaries for many
| citizens/permanent residents and foreigners/temporary
| residents, $100,000 is not an effective way of making that
| happen.
| jojobas wrote:
| If you genuine shortage is not worth some 33k a year, it's
| not a genuine shortage.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| If people that think like you had actually done something
| about it, then we wouldn't be to this point. But at this
| point the only people taking action are trumps, and if that's
| the only solution being offered, it will be taken. The
| conversation here is mild, get the room temp on this issue
| outside of lib tech circles and you'll see
| mindslight wrote:
| So after 4 years, or whenever this con man finally has the
| decency to keel over, is everyone who supported these
| performative non-solutions simply to "be heard" (or however
| else they frame their emotional release) going to _own up_
| to the fact that they 've burnt all the political capital
| on the issues they care about? Or are they going to blame
| the failures on "libuhruls" and go right back to whinging
| while waiting for the next con man who will pay them lip
| service?
| jorgen123 wrote:
| For those not reading the linked article, it was not about tech
| (although valid discussions here). I had not expected this (this
| is about rural Alaska):
|
| > "In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly
| 80% of the teaching staff. School districts already invest $6,000
| to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through
| the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has
| made it financially impossible for many districts to continue
| hiring the teachers their students depend on.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Yeah, most of us think of tech, but the program affects
| doctors, nurses and teachers for rural America.
| infecto wrote:
| Which is sadly very ironic.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| This was the most infuriating part.
|
| Big Tech has multiple carveouts to bring tech labor using
| F1/J1/L1/O1/EB-1 and various other visas, and they wouldn't
| even feel the 100k fee given their budgets.
|
| While non-tech sectors were the ones most affected
| alephnerd wrote:
| And it's not just education - nurses, doctors, and plenty of
| engineers in the Energy, Mining, and Construction sector are
| also brought on H1Bs to Alaska.
|
| Edit: can't reply
|
| > Are they also using traditional incentive methods, like
| signing bonuses, for domestic prospects
|
| Yes.
|
| I have a good buddy of mine who is senior management at an ANRC
| and they will pay 6 figure salaries to non-natives irrespective
| of citizenship in a number of cases.
|
| Heck, even the starting salary for unskilled federal roles like
| TSA agents at Utquiatvik was $70K last I was there versus
| $30-40k in the rest of the mainland.
|
| Much of Alaska is literal villages that are disconnected from
| the outside world aside from the occasional bush plane, and
| amenities are nonexistent. You are talking about towns and
| villages where most of the residents are entirely depending on
| UBI (Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend) and subsidence
| hunting/farming.
|
| As such, it's not enticing.
|
| Also, a number of Alaska Natives prefer hiring Thai and
| Filipino immigrants over Americans (who statistically tend to
| be White, Black, or Hispanic) because if you're hiring
| outsiders you may as well hire outsiders who look like you and
| are viewed as more culturally aligned.
| imglorp wrote:
| Are they also using traditional incentive methods, like
| signing bonuses, for domestic prospects?
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| Not from USA, is there shortage of teachers in USA? Or
| government pays too little to have local teachers consider such
| jobs? Seems like a broken system
| nemomarx wrote:
| Teacher pay is low, but it also requires certification and a
| degree. And in exchange it will be relatively stressful and
| lacking in prestige.
| pastel8739 wrote:
| And long hours!
| trelane wrote:
| My favorite teacher strike was when the teachers stopped
| doing work when they weren't being paid. The district
| quickly caved.
| TylerE wrote:
| The "Alaska" bit is very important. Very remote, very cold.
| Everything is very expensive because almost all of it has to
| be shipped in by air.
|
| Yes, the US teacher pay is generally crap and we're short on
| teachers everywhere, but Alaska is a rather unique situation.
|
| It's 16% of the US's land area, but only 0.2% of the
| population.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Little bit of both. Pay varies drastically from state to
| state, even taking cost of living into account. By the time
| you pay for a degree and a credential the ROI isn't great.
| Jobs in better paying areas exist too but are understandably
| more competitive
| brudgers wrote:
| Rural Alaska is by and large very very remote. Often small
| plane is the only practical access and then only in favorable
| weather.
|
| Recruiting teachers to remote villages with extreme weather
| is hard and if you are at US university training to be a
| teacher you will probably have other options that are more
| attractive as a young person.
| lokar wrote:
| Even anchorage is pretty bad
| trelane wrote:
| > is there shortage of teachers in USA?
|
| No, there is a steady stream of teachers being fed into the
| maw of public education. The pay is low and job security is
| terrible until you get tenure. My wife was a teacher; I have
| heard horror stories.
|
| You get paid based on a combination of how much money you
| earn your employer and how easy you are to replace. Schools
| get paid by taxes, and there are a ton of them produced every
| year. So, the pay is abysmal.
| throwawaytea wrote:
| My gf makes about $90k a year, tons of time off, at 35
| years old in a California public school. If she wasn't a
| teacher, she admits she'd probably be a cop or 911
| dispatcher, because government gigs are what her entire
| extended family recommends. She has trouble adding 50 cents
| to 75 cents, but luckily she only teaches English and
| social studies to middle schoolers.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| I have a kid who just graduated elementary and is about
| to enter Middle school.
|
| Your post actually explains why every single classmate of
| my daughter has enrolled in private middle school ($50k+
| tuition), despite being in the best school district (Palo
| Alto School District).
|
| Apparently public middle schools are really bad in
| California, but you can still find decent high and
| elementary schools
|
| All top private middle schools in the bay are
| oversubscribed and cannot accomodate everyone, and
| require ridiculous exams and admission process that
| rivals Ivy League, situation is really bad, and demand
| for good teachers is infinite
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Teachers are paid less than they should be and and must
| complete specific undergraduate and graduate degrees as well
| as additional ongoing certifications. They are,
| unfortunately, not well respected by many groups. And right-
| wing folks have been making noise about augmenting and
| replacing teachers with AI. I have multiple friends who have
| left teaching due to lack of respect and support from student
| parents. I still have two teachers in my family.
| wyager wrote:
| Isn't the entire point of this order to prevent filling low-
| paying jobs with cheap foreign labor, in order to increase
| demand for domestic labor? "Rural district schoolteacher"
| sounds like exactly the kind of job where the H1B program has
| very low public support
| randyrand wrote:
| There are an excess of teachers in the USA already. It's a big
| reason they aren't paid that well.
|
| No good reason to import them except to pay them _even less_.
| culopatin wrote:
| But evidently they don't want to move to rural America.
| jojobas wrote:
| Hardly an argument to import teachers on work visas.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| so you want to leave rural children without teachers?
| SecretDreams wrote:
| I think the commenter is volunteering to go themselves.
| culopatin wrote:
| It's a matter of incentives. The avg American grows up
| with certain "American dream" that clashes with that
| rural America life. There is no incentive to leave
| everything behind and go be basically alone. Immigrants
| have a "lower" baseline or just want the experience of
| being abroad, or are willing to put up with rural living
| because from wherever they are, it looks better. You'd
| have to entice a city teacher to move to rural America.
|
| You'll say "pay them more". But who are you taxing more?
| Because no one is happy when the gov starts looking at
| being more efficient and starts laying off some admin
| people either.
| jojobas wrote:
| Teachers were like 4% of all H1Bs. Using CS/AI H1B
| proceeds to increase pay to rural teachers more seems
| like a no-brainer. The current Alaskan teacher pay seems
| to be below median, which seems like an good threshold to
| disallow H1B workers altogether.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| Have you considered the possibility that H1B teachers are
| simply better (at any price point) ?
|
| H1B proceeds go to fund USCIS and its staff, they do not
| go towards local school districts.
|
| This whole discussion is full of racists and haters who
| dont know anything about the subject beyond clickbait
| titles
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >Have you considered the possibility that H1B teachers
| are simply better (at any price point) ?
|
| That sounds sort of racist, actually.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| It is not racist, but it is true. The Education major is
| one of the bottom majors, Americans with the lowest
| grades and lowest SAT scores go on to become public
| school teachers. and it is well known information among
| Americans themselves.
|
| https://x.com/marcportermagee/status/1954326425072546055/
| pho...
|
| https://reports.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/2023-total-
| group-... The average SAT for Education
| majors: 1023 It's ranked 24th, behind
| Communications (19th), Library Science (13th), and
| English (11th). The top major: Math.
|
| while foreigners on H1B are top percentile in academic
| performance and scoring and generally H1B attract top 1%
| talent from the global talent pool, especially given
| there are only like 60k visas issued per year.
|
| People who look at the stats objectively should be the
| first ones to advocate for more H1B teachers, if that
| meant children would get dramatically better education
| Erem wrote:
| Americans are every race. How could it be racist?
| bluegatty wrote:
| It's literally exactly the argument.
|
| If teachers were underpaid - it would be a poor argument.
|
| But if there's an acute shortage of 'key' workers in jobs
| that require education, for jobs where wages are
| materially above market pricing - then this is where you
| want H1B type programs.
|
| The idea is that it should not harm the local market for
| labour, and it's usually not reasonable to expect market
| wages to be a radical departure from where they would be
| otherwise.
|
| Aka - if teachers are earning $80K on average, then it's
| not going to work out i some small towns need to pay
| $150K to bring people in from the city, it also creates
| problems for locals.
|
| Special worker programs can be well utilized here in the
| right circumstances.
|
| The 'bad' scenario is when labour market is flooded where
| those jobs would otherwise go to locals.
|
| Tata/Infosys (generic IT workers) are alone probably 80%
| of the problem.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| Rural Alaska... Just about the most inhospitable climate in
| the US, remote, and with a very high cost of living.
| Teachers can find work just about anywhere, they have
| little incentive to stay in Alaska.
|
| The solution for this is simple - pay them more. There are
| plenty of recently graduated teachers who would work in
| Alaska for a few years if it paid off their student loans
| or let them save up a down payment on a house.
| culopatin wrote:
| And who pays that extra? Who are you taxing in the middle
| of nowhere?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The Alaska Permanent Fund from their oil revenue is worth
| $90 billion and they send every resident an annual $1,000
| check on top of heavily subsidized fuel. I think they can
| pay competitive teacher salaries.
| Brybry wrote:
| Alaska is already in the top 8 median elementary school
| teacher salaries nationally, with ~$79,260 in 2025
| compared to 2024 national median of $62,310 (couldn't
| find 2025). They were #2 and #3 in education spending as
| a percent of state GDP in 2024 and 2025. [1][2][3]
|
| It would need to be more than just competitive, it would
| probably need to be doctor-tier "I'm giving up my life
| plans for this salary in Alaska" level (which is what I
| assume it's like for foreign labor).
|
| It's possible they can afford it. I would think they
| would need to double or more their education spending
| (~$2.77 billion (24/25), ~45% -> wages) state wide which
| would be most of what the Alaska Permanent Fund pays out
| per year ($3-4 billion) [4][5]
|
| I imagine it would be politically very unpopular for
| obvious reasons.
|
| [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-
| library/kinde...
|
| [2] https://data.bls.gov/oesprofile/?major_group=250000&o
| ccupati... (increase records to see Alaska)
|
| [3] https://www.schoolfinancedata.org/annual-reports/2024
|
| https://www.schoolfinancedata.org/annual-reports/2025
|
| [4] https://alaskapolicyforum.org/2025/06/alaskas-
| schools-are-ro...
|
| [5] https://apfc.org/the-fund/fund-structure/
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| there is already a program like that, its been running
| for ages, its called PLSF. Still not enough teachers.
|
| https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-
| cancellation...
|
| People who critique H1B always seem to assume that people
| actually hiring for labor are much dumber than those
| bright commenters and haven't exhausted each and every
| other opportunity to find qualified people.
|
| No, you are not being smarter than lawmakers who enacted
| H1B program, and then refused to dismantle it at every
| opportunity to do so. You are not smarter than employers
| who have to hire via H1B and pay tens of thousands
| dollars to immigration lawyers for stupid paperwork.
|
| Most of the critique of H1B in this post is just bigoted,
| hateful, and uneducated rant
| janalsncm wrote:
| Is there an excess of teachers in Alaska?
|
| I can understand why rural schools would need H1Bs. They
| would probably need to pay a premium to attract teachers from
| out of state, not to mention Alaska. And rural schools are
| the least able to actually do that.
|
| Maybe if the current admin really wants to keep the $100k
| fee, they can extend an olive branch by either waiving the
| fee or helping to fund American teachers to move to fill
| those jobs.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| There's as many teachers in Alaska as they're willing to
| pay for.
| nsagent wrote:
| Having lived in bumblefuck Alaska for a year, I can
| honestly say that they do in fact pay more, but it's also
| super expensive to live in rural Alaska.
|
| Likely a bigger issue is that very few people want to
| live in a town of 3000 people or less that isn't
| connected to the interstate road system. Money can only
| do so much to fix that.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Some people live in a pressurized bubble for a month for
| saturation diving. If the price is right you can get
| someone to do almost anything.
| allarm wrote:
| It doesn't matter how much money you have if you can't
| spend it.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| That applies to a ton of people in the military. People
| are capable of delayed gratification.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes, there is supply and demand. However, that doesnt
| mean a government cant restrict supply.
| halestock wrote:
| Er, there is an excess of teachers because they are paid so
| poorly. Teaching (like nursing) is absolutely a labor of love
| and so they are heavily undervalued and underpaid in this
| country.
| esalman wrote:
| I hear this argument all the time. There's an excess of this,
| there's an excess of that. Seems it only comes from people
| who are not directly involved in hiring of such roles. We
| hired for an analyst role few months ago in the bay area and
| there was no qualified American applicants. My wife is in
| pavement consultancy and they hardly ever find qualified
| Americans for pavement design jobs.
| anon-3988 wrote:
| Does your wife's consultancy business have a growing number
| of clients to handle? It might also be an issue of
| distribution.
| esalman wrote:
| No such issues. It's actually not a solo business, it's a
| civil/geological engineering consultancy firm with a mix
| of state/local government and private clients.
| dmix wrote:
| People can't seem to separate the issue of exploitation of
| H1B by (mostly Indian) consultancy mills to lower wages and
| bypass normal immigration vs the legitimate value of
| specialized skilled visas. You can fix one without killing
| the other.
|
| It's plausible Education might be one of the industries
| that gets exploited as they have no caps in the lottery
| like other H1 visas categories such as tech or doctors. But
| I don't know enough about education visas personally.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| Isn't it a self-fulfilling issue? Dependence on H1B and
| other visa dependent workers leads to lower salaries which
| discourages local talent from that specialty.
|
| What requirements did the role have and what's the salary
| range?
|
| From what little I gather from online job listings, most
| foreign labor dependent positions are trying to pay 90K for
| a masters degree, maybe 120-140K Bay Area. Additionally,
| many of these job listings want extremely specific degrees
| or certifications that frankly are of little interest to US
| citizens - but F1 students will take any masters program
| despite the program having little salary benefit - the
| degree is a requirement for the visa.
|
| I have a hard time believing you can't find a US civil
| engineer who could learn the subject matter right out of
| college. Although saying that I know first hand low
| starting salaries have pushed students towards mechanical
| engineering or CS if inclined.
| lokar wrote:
| It's not the job, it's the location.
|
| There is a shortage of most careers that require and college
| degree in rural areas.
|
| Also, rural areas don't have the tax base to out pay urban
| areas.
|
| This is about the stagnation and lack of vitality in rural
| towns in general.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Rural Alaska is a special kind of rural that most people
| won't take to. Communities off the road where you fly in on a
| small plane, take a river boat, or snow machine in the winter
| to get there. Most are tribal and insular. Getting anyone to
| move there is a big ask. For a H1B teacher it is a foot in
| the door.
| ttul wrote:
| There is actually a sensible way to do recruit foreign workers to
| fill jobs that locals for some reason can't fill, and it's just a
| few miles up north...
|
| Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) is not limited
| by annual caps or lotteries. You just apply (as a company) by
| filling in a few simple forms and posting a job in the "Canada
| Job Bank" for a period of time to demonstrate that you genuinely
| searched for locals to fill the role and couldn't find anyone
| suitable. I've hired many people through this program to fill a
| variety of roles over the years, and all of them eventually
| became citizens too. Once you're on Canadian soil as a TFW,
| moving toward permanent residency is not very difficult if you're
| a skilled worker with enough "points" (based on education, etc.).
|
| Some argue (perhaps correctly) that the TFWP suppresses Canadian
| wages and productivity growth by flooding the labour market with
| cheap staff from poor countries. And there is likely some truth
| to that. But when I hear how many hoops my US colleagues have to
| jump through with lawyers and such to bring skilled employees in,
| it boggles my mind. If the Americans were to implement a more
| modern temporary foreign worker program similar to what Canada
| has, you'd have to imagine the US economy would boom like it
| never has.
| naturalmovement wrote:
| > by filling in a few simple forms and posting a job in the
| "Canada Job Bank" for a period of time to demonstrate that you
| genuinely searched for locals to fill the role and couldn't
| find anyone suitable
|
| This is anathema to tech H1B abusers, which is why they post
| these jobs in obscure print publications no one reads, to
| deliberately conceal their existence, while meeting the legal
| requirement.
|
| Unfortunately for them, they cannot treat domestic workers as
| chattel, which is the inconvenient truth in most cases.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| There's nothing remotely sensible about what Canada has done to
| allow Indian ethnic cartels to take over their job market
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a horrible program
| that has been flagrantly abused for years to the detriment of
| Canadians. There's record high youth unemployment yet every Tim
| Hortons is filled with Indians.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| Misleading title, implies national but only for one state
| losvedir wrote:
| No, the article has an Alaska focus because it's some Alaskan
| news agency, but I believe it's a nation-wide block. The judge
| in question is based in Massachusetts.
|
| Side note, but I'm sort of surprised that this "level" of judge
| (I think there's almost 700 of them in the country) is able to
| block these orders. It seems like almost no executive order is
| possible if you need a unanimous agreement of 700 people.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Recently the Supreme Court has curtailed these nationwide
| injuctions: https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/supreme-court-
| sides-with-...
| albert_e wrote:
| There was a ruling in Boston also, reported separately.
|
| > U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the ruling
| in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general
| challenging a fee Trump announced in September
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/trumps-100000-h-1b-visa-fee-is...
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/08/politics/federal-judge-vo...
| jameson wrote:
| It's more alarming that US doesn't have enough skilled teachers
| in the nation that we have to hire from overseas.
|
| Education is an investment to the future generation and must not
| be overlooked.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| That's not even remotely the case. We just don't have enough
| people willing to move to rural Alaska.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| ...for the given price.
| jameson wrote:
| I'm sure the supply will go up if extra $$$ is paid.
| SXX wrote:
| Except you'll have to spend way more than $100,000 to
| incentify US citizen from a city to move there and stay.
|
| And they not gonna have the same near slave H1B conditions
| where changing their job is just impossible..
|
| H1B workers in IT even have an option to find a new visa
| sponsor, but nobody needs foreign teacher with H1B in
| California or Texas or basically anywhere else.
| albert_e wrote:
| Also a ruling in Boston:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/trumps-100000-h-1b-visa-fee-is...
|
| > BOSTON, June 8 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday struck
| down a $100,000 fee U.S. President Donald Trump imposed on new
| H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, concluding that it
| constituted an unlawful tax Congress never authorized.
|
| > U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the ruling in
| a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general
| challenging a fee Trump announced in September that dramatically
| raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas, which tech companies in
| particular rely heavily on to bring on foreign workers.
| a34729t wrote:
| Heaven forbid we could pay better! Something something market
| signals... not like Alaska is hurting for money.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-06-09 04:01 UTC)