USC said in an advisory issued on Saturday that faculty and staff under H-1B visa status should not leave the country after President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Friday to raise the required fee to obtain the visa to $100,000. USC also \u201cstrongly recommended\u201d that those on H-1B visas currently outside the country should return to the U.S. immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand the proclamation is causing distress for our community,\u201d the advisory reads. \u201cThe university will continue to monitor additional statements and instructions from the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services and Departments of State and Homeland Security to provide further guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The University did not provide information on its plans for future H-1B sponsorship.<\/p>\n
H-1B visas allow employers, \u201cwho cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce,\u201d to temporarily hire international workers to fill those gaps, according to the Department of Labor. The visa is typically approved for three years at a time and can be extended once. <\/p>\n
From 2009 to 2025, USC had 793 new H-1B visas approved and 501 approvals continued, per USCIS data.<\/p>\n
The Pew Research Center found in 2017 that the fee to obtain an H-1B visa was typically between $1,700 and $6,400 based on the size of the company. The increased fee will only apply to new applicants after going into effect Sunday, not renewals or current visa holders, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X. <\/p>\n
Leavitt also said the cost would be one time fee, not annual, and that those currently on visas would not be charged for re-entering the country.<\/p>\n
While the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has a mandated 65,000 H-1B visa acceptance cap, there are multiple exemptions to the rule, including for employees of a university, which allowed the department to accept nearly 400,000 in the 2024 fiscal year. About 140,000 of the visa approvals were new, while the rest were renewals or adjustments, according to USCIS data.<\/p>\n
Sanjay Madhav, associate professor of technology and applied computer practice at the Viterbi School of Engineering, said the fee would \u201ceffectively close off\u201d the H-1B application process in his department, which he said has hired three faculty members on H-1B visas in roughly the last five years. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn some cases, by far the best candidates were these international candidates,\u201d Madhav said. \u201cAdding additional hurdles to the hiring process is ultimately going to be a negative impact on all of us, even those of us that aren\u2019t involved in the tech industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Madhav, the change would also impact USC\u2019s ability to bring in international students, who he said often come to school in the U.S. with the hope of staying for employment, sometimes through an H-1B visa. He said that with a decreased likelihood of earning a visa, students may be less likely to pay USC\u2019s nearly $100,000 total annual cost of attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome students may choose to, instead, stay in their current country rather than try to come here,\u201d Madhav said.<\/p>\n
Individuals born in India and China account for the vast majority of H-1B recipients in the U.S., with roughly 71% and 12%, respectively, according to USCIS data. USC\u2019s fall 2024 admittance class was made up of 26.6% international students, about 48% came from China, and almost 20% from India, according to data released by USC.<\/p>\n
More than 60% of H-1B workers in the U.S. are in a computer-related field, while engineering, education and administrative specialties make up more than 5%, according to the Pew Research Center. Amazon has almost 3% of H-1B workers, while other big tech companies like Google and Apple are also near the top of the list.<\/p>\n
A White House fact sheet posted Friday said the change was put in place to \u201ccurb abuses that displace U.S. workers and undermine national security,\u201d though multiple experts told Bloomberg News that the increased fee would hurt the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a senseless, terrible policy for financial services firms that makes American firms less competitive in the global market for talent,\u201d said Alexis DuFresne, founder of recruiting firm Archer Search Partners, in a Bloomberg News article.<\/p>\n
Becky Fu von Trapp, an immigration lawyer in Stowe, Vermont, told Bloomberg News the fee could be struck down in court for being excessive and may incentivize companies to hire remote workers who live outside the U.S. <\/p>\n
\u201cCompanies will reassess the need of who they really need to bring to U.S. and who can be based in Canada or Singapore, where they still have good technology infrastructure and can work remotely,\u201d Fu von Trapp told Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n
Students and faculty can reach out to the Gould School of Law\u2019s Immigrant Legal Assistance Center with questions. The center provides consultations and assistance for USC community members \u201cwho have questions about their legal status and legal rights under the immigration laws,\u201d according to its website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USC said in an advisory issued on Saturday that faculty and staff under H-1B visa status should not…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":247522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[49468,63940,1582,276,131480,2961,224,5337,277,11016,23509],"class_list":{"0":"post-247521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-49468","9":"tag-63940","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-h1b","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-usc","18":"tag-visa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115250713370475240","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}