The new cost of global talent

A Trump-era change to the H-1B visa program could significantly impact how Rochester-area employers recruit skilled foreign workers in the years ahead.

The White House last month announced new restrictions on H-1B visas, requiring a $100,000 fee per petition as a measure against the misuse of the H-1B statute.

“(The H-1B system) has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor,” the announcement reads. “The large-scale replacement of American workers through systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security.”

“It is therefore necessary to impose higher costs on companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to address the abuse of that program while still permitting companies to hire the best of the best temporary foreign workers,” it continues.

Rochester is especially sensitive to shifts in the H-1B visa system. With 751 approved workers through the third quarter of 2025, the area hosts more H-1B employees than any other part of the state outside New York City. (New York City had 26,362 approvals through the third quarter of 2025). 

“The recent H-1B proclamation was an abrupt development and took a lot of local employers by surprise,” says Glenn Schieck, partner at Harter Secrest & Emery.

The University of Rochester hired 169 international workers in 2025. It is the largest number of high-skilled foreign employees in the area.

“The University of Rochester is immeasurably better and stronger because of its international community,” says UR spokesperson Sara Miller. “We value and embrace one another under challenging circumstances.” 

While the $100,000 fee change is attention-grabbing, experts agree that it may have little impact on these workers since most local employers do not hire from overseas but rather sponsor workers who are already in the United States.

“While the proclamation initially seemed quite broad, USCIS (U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services) has issued clarifying guidance significantly limiting its scope,” Schieck says. “Under current guidance, the $100,000 fee applies primarily to employers sponsoring an H-1B work visa for people physically outside the U.S. The fee does not apply to workers who are currently in the U.S. in H-1B status, or in some other valid visa status, such as F-1 international students.”

Ron Hira, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Howard University and a longtime critic of the H-1B visa program, finds the $100,000 a distraction. Instead, Hira, who previously worked at Rochester Institute of Technology, believes other portions of the Trump measure are more important, such as a measure to amend prevailing wage levels. Whether this administration will follow through and change the H-1B system is still uncertain, however.

The local picture

According to data from the USCIS H-1B Employer Data hub, most of Rochester’s successful petitions for H-1B workers through the third quarter of 2025 were in the fields of health care and social assistance, educational services, and professional, scientific, and technical services, which comprised 30, 29, and 28 percent of all workers, respectively.

UR says it is directing outreach efforts to relevant stakeholders, including current and possible future H-1B holders, and providing guidance to individuals who could be affected.

“Questions remain as to the federal government’s application of the proclamation and processing of national interest exceptions, and as to the impact of current legal challenges to the proclamation,” Miller says. “The university intends to provide additional updates as more information becomes available, especially clarity on seeking exemptions from the fees for health care and higher education.”

Cristina Domingues Umbrino, spokesperson for Rochester Regional Health, which has hired 147 people through the visa program, says the health system relies on highly skilled team members through the program, including nurses, physicians, and residents in critical clinical roles.

“We are working closely with our immigration counsel to understand the implications of the recent federal changes and continue to monitor guidance from federal agencies,” Umbrino says. “We believe healthcare workers are essential to the nation’s wellbeing and will advocate for exemptions that recognize their vital role in communities across the country. At the same time, our priority remains ensuring uninterrupted, high-quality care for our patients.”

Also on the list of local employers is Avani Technology Solutions and its subsidiary, Indotronix International Corp., with 107 H-1B workers. (Avani acquired Indotronix in 2016.) Other companies with H1-B hires included Unity Health Systems, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Paychex, with 64, 46 and 36 workers, respectively.

“The most recent changes to H-1B visa provisions have not impacted how we do business or how we support our current sponsored employees,” says Mason Argiropoulos, chief human resources officer at Paychex. 

The other 182 H-1B workers this year were split among 87 companies, including Constellation Brands, Wegmans, Li-Cycle, Kodak Alaris, and the Rochester Academy of Science Charter School.

Even with the number of petition approvals trending upward since 2009, this year’s number is the highest for Rochester in more than two decades. For a time, Buffalo had a larger number of approved applications, but that has recently fallen. Syracuse and Albany have always employed fewer H-1B workers than the cities to their west.

Origins of the program

The H-1B visa system was established in 1990 to allow the hiring of temporary workers in specialty occupations. These candidates require at least a bachelor’s degree and tend to fill  jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Typically, these professionals have graduate degrees. Employers are required to attest that the hired foreign worker does not displace or discriminate against the wages of a domestic employee.

Rochester has relied on the visa program for decades. The area’s former Big Three—Kodak, Xerox and Bausch+Lomb—have used it to bring in highly skilled workers, from scientists and engineers to educators and doctors.

The White House says the system has negatively impacted U.S. STEM workers who have simultaneously faced layoffs and underemployment or unemployment. For example, it cites a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that showed college graduates ages 22 to 27 with degrees in computer science and computer engineering face unemployment rates of 6.1 and 7.5 percent, respectively.

“(These are) more than double the unemployment rates of recent biology and art history graduates,” a White House statement said. 

“Domestic law enforcement agencies have identified and investigated H-1B-reliant outsourcing companies for engaging in visa fraud, conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and other illicit activities to encourage foreign workers to come to the United States,” according to the White House.

Workers must be sponsored by an employer through USCIS, which has an annual cap of 65,000, with an additional 20,000 for visa holders with a master’s degree (universities are exempt from cap limits) and a lottery system for approvals. The duration of H-1B status is three years, but it can be extended and visa holders can decide to immigrate permanently.

The USCIS further clarified this month that the new $100,000 fee applies only to applicants filing after Sept. 21, 2025, and would not impact other types, such as the student F-1 visa. In addition, the Secretary of Homeland Security can use their discretion to override this requirement if these workers are of national interest and do not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.

Since the announcement, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a group historically aligned with the Republican Party, has sued the Trump administration, arguing that the new fee is unlawful as it overrides provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“The new $100,000 visa fee will make it cost-prohibitive for U.S. employers, especially start-ups and small and midsize businesses, to utilize the H-1B program, which was created by Congress expressly to ensure that American businesses of all sizes can access the global talent they need to grow their operations here in the U.S,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber, in a statement.

“The president deserves credit for securing our nation’s border,” he continued. “With the border secure, we now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accomplish targeted legal immigration reforms, and we stand ready to work with Congress and the administration to make that happen.” 

A collection of health care groups and labor unions represented by Justice Action Center, an immigration advocacy group, has also sued the administration, arguing the president lacks the authority to enact these changes.

They further argue that these changes will negatively impact medically underserved areas, which already have health professional shortages. 

“Given the shortages of nurses and physicians, we are very concerned about the impact of the H1-B visa fee on our ability to hire these high-quality, internationally educated health professionals, as well as international scholars and scientists,” Miller says. “H-1B beneficiaries train and educate domestic students for these high-demand occupations, conduct essential research and provide critical patient care.”

The road ahead

Outside of a low period during the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of H-1B approvals in Rochester were for new employment over the past 16 years. So far in 2025, 55 percent of all approvals have been for new employees. Eighteen percent were for continuing approval. USCIS records do not indicate if these new employees were transitioning from another visa, such as an F-1 or student visa, which would be exempt from the $100,000 fee.

“I don’t know why they chose to do it that way. I don’t know if it’s three-dimensional chess or they wanted to make a splash or if whoever put it together didn’t know what they were doing,” says Hira. “We always think these things are super well thought out. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.”

Hira instead sees other developments as more important than the new fee. For example, Section 4 of the announcement will amend H-1B worker prevailing wage levels, which is the minimum wages that an employer must pay. This measure could improve an unequal system, which, in Hira’s view, exploits foreign workers by offering them lower pay and fewer protections.

“Right now, it’s set at way below the U.S. market wage, the level you’d hire an American worker at. That creates this H-1B outsourcing model where you’ve got employers that hire H-1B workers and then farm them out,” he says. “If the Department of Labor actually follows through with this directive, and there’s good reason to believe they will, that will go a long way toward fixing the heart of the problem. It would be good for H-1B workers and it would also be less distortive on the U.S. labor market.”

The Trump administration has also indicated it wants to institute a weighted lottery for H-1B workers. Under that system, Hira explains, workers with higher-paying jobs would be weighted more favorably, 

In addition, on the day the presidential action on H-1B visas was announced, the Department of Labor announced its own action. With Project Firewall, the department intends to investigate and enforce H-1B program compliance, something that has not occurred under either Democratic or Republican administrations in the past, Hira says.

“This is all framed as being Trump, but this is not a partisan issue,” he notes. “Bernie Sanders has spoken out about this program. The two biggest champions in Congress are Dick Durbin, a liberal Democratic senator from Illinois, and Chuck Grassley, a pretty conservative Republican.”

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a “crackdown” on H-1B visas late last month. Going even further than the federal government, DeSantis has directed all Florida universities to stop using the H-1B visa program entirely.

“Universities across the country are importing foreign workers on H-1B visas instead of hiring Americans who are qualified and available to do the job,” said DeSantis. “We will not tolerate H-1B abuse in Florida institutions. That’s why I have directed the Florida Board of Governors to end this practice.”

Whether the new federal measures will be implemented as promised remains to be seen. Hira notes that similar language regarding changes to the H-1B visa system was used during Trump’s first term in 2017. No real focus was given to it until 2020, late in his term. The subsequent Biden administration did not continue these efforts.

“The ecosystem matters because ‘personnel is policy.’ The people who were running immigration policy for the Biden White House was Amy Nice, who was the Chamber of Commerce lobbyist, so there’s a revolving door that goes on there,” Hira says.

“Color me a little skeptical about whether it’ll really be fixed in Trump’s second administration, but I think something will happen,” he continues. “Out of the 25 years I’ve been working on this, I’ve testified seven or eight times before Congress, I’ve seen things come and go where there’s been a lot of congressional hearings and publicity and proposals. But it feels like something is going to happen.”

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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