Wall Street banks and tech companies big and small were scrambling on Saturday to figure out how their tens of thousands of employees would be affected by President Donald Trump’s proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee for visas granted to skilled foreign workers.
The change set off immediate confusion over the exact rules and how they would be enforced. Shortly after Trump signed the proclamation on Friday, employees at Microsoft, Amazon and JPMorgan received notices advising those with H-1B visas who were outside the US to return before the new rules take effect at 12.01am Eastern time on Sunday.
The Trump administration sought to address the confusion on Saturday by saying that the fee would only apply to new applicants, and renewals or current visa holders would not be affected. In a post on social media, the White House said the change would “not impact the ability of any current visa holder to travel to/from the US”.
Still, many executives, general counsels and human resources departments, as well as their immigration lawyers, said they were coming down on the side of caution this weekend. Several companies and attorneys had already urged workers to return to the US as soon as possible. Many kept their eyes glued on the White House social media accounts for any pertinent clarification. The visas, which play a crucial role in helping employers fill jobs in the tech industry and beyond, have been at the centre of a deep immigration debate.
“We acknowledge that this is an uncertain time for our people on H-1B visas and your families,” Jacqueline Arthur, head of human capital management at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a memo on Saturday to employees. The memo said that Goldman was working with its lawyers “to review the specifics of the order as more detail becomes available to communicate with you accordingly”.
Bernhard Mueller, co-chair of the immigration practice group at Ogletree Deakins, said he had been flooded with calls from executives and corporate board members about the new rules and how to communicate with employees about them. “There’s a lot of question marks all over this,” he said early on Saturday. “We are still flying in somewhat foggy conditions.”
Late on Saturday, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a memo underscoring that Trump’s proclamation only applied “prospectively to petitions that have not yet been filed”.
Still, the policy change represents a significant overhaul of how the US distributes what are known as H-1B visas.
White House officials said the policy change would help ensure that companies were giving priority to hiring domestic workers. “President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this common sense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down wages,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.
Some workers who are currently abroad said they were unsure about how to immediately respond. A 29-year-old software engineer with a stamped H-1B visa set to begin in less than 20 days, was tucked into bed in his Munich apartment early on Saturday when he realised he might be stuck in Germany.
Speaking before the government’s clarification on how the visa fee would be applied, the software engineer, who is an Indian citizen with a German work visa, said he felt “clueless” about how to proceed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was worried about his visa status. His company, he said, had told him to stay put.
In its email to employees on Friday, Microsoft, which has roughly 5,200 employees in the programme, said that workers currently in the US should remain there “for the foreseeable future”, even if it interrupts future travel plans.
“The critical thing is to stay in the US in order to avoid being denied re-entry,” the
advisory said.
New York Times News Service