Visa holders on vacation have 15 hours to return to US or pay $100k fee

Via what mechanism? Will they be ready to accept the payments a few hours from now? Ready to process the re-entry with procedures that aren’t even developed yet?

Getting into the country before the deadline is the only safe way to avoid the uncertainty and ensure you don’t get stranded out of the country or in an airport for days or weeks while the process is developed.

This hastily constructed and implemented executive order is a terrible way to run a country

Let me guess, you're not an immigrant?

Unless you mean the electoral college overriding popular vote nonsense, and disproportionate Senate power, which was there since the beginning, I don't know what you mean.

The voters apparently wanted more of this per the Nov 2024 elections, when we still had a credible election process.

I don't think this is a bill, just part of a series of proclamations he sprays around to get tied up in courts and then revoked by the next adult in the office. Legislation takes serious time and work and discipline, but it can be lasting in a way this isn't. This is a failed marshmallow test.

Yeah, earlier this year. Or so you mean that time he sent a mob to prevent certification of a fair election?

Cold war Reagan who stood up to Russia/China, generally represented American interests, and led - regardless of many disagreeing with him politically? No, this is that party having gone insane from stewing in reactionary talk radio for decades in a cycle of getting angrier while being repeatedly suckered into supporting more shit that left them worse off.

And this round is actually quite similar, just more unhinged. Notice how it's all about making pain for the individual visa holders, not the companies employing them. Just like the LG factory raid - attacking the individual workers in a show of performative cruelty, rather than focusing on the company. Trump has already been talking about creating programs to allow illegal labor to continue in "critical" industries such as landscaping, construction, farming, etc. Because when the rubber meets the road those are his own interests, even if his primary business has moved on to taking bribes in shitcoins.

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> H1Bs are slave labor

How did we get to a point where people casually call H1B tech workers often earning $120K or more “slave labor”?

When I think of slavery I usually think of working for free, not H1B tech worker salaries which are insanely high on a global scale. It's also something people actively sign up for.

What you are replying to is a not even a critique of the policy itself, so defending it is a bit misdirected on your part

The order allows for exemptions at the executive’s discretion. Aka, the biggest companies will bend the knee and get their way

God Bless Murica. They need it.

I'm actually not sure who this is. Can you please name drop?

Does it ever? Blood thrist has a tendency to increase when cruelty is paid for by your taxes, while the source of frustrations isn't going anywhere

Fast forward 20 years, US will put tariffs on that industry for being too good to compete against.

You are a cruel person. These people have built up their and likely their children’s lives here. You cannot change that in the span of 24 hours, even if you wanted to. To ask them to just “stay in India” is absolutely a nonsense statement.

That's no way to execute a change of status. Do you realize that people on visas can have rental property or even owned property in the US, with things in them? In some cases their kids could even be in the US.

This level of uncertainty just makes the United States toxic for business and investment. How is this Making America Great Again, again?

>(which can obviously cause confusion and not apply the same rules to everyone

This is called a corrupt system. It's the intent. Trump will come out with gold visas for companies who pay him whatever favor he wants at the moment.

This corruption is meant to look at like 'just following orders'. You are providing the fascist lubricant by giving it a good faith examination.

Don't do that.

Net income per employee at MS is $440K so if H-1B are so important then they can afford it. I worked at MS on a visa and it definitely felt like I was a second class citizen that managers could freely abuse without recourse, it didn’t help that corporate politics had become tribal. So while having a visa was beneficial to me personally I felt it lead to the degradation of the employment market, now a market for lemons, and this hurt Americans. High prices are a signal and people make career choices based on prospective income, many of America's smartest got the memo that Software Engineering was going to be taken over by H-1B Indians and they should pick a different career like law, finance, or medicine. So the program created the problem it was purporting to solve, the fact that the problem exists even though we’ve had H1-Bs for decades. The irony is that without the H-1Bs the US market might be attractive enough for me to return, sadly I’d need the visa. I’m content knowing the market isn’t being destroyed for Americans even if it means I can’t partake in it.

That said I wonder if it’s more of a power grab with the discretion to grant exemptions being used to strong arm corporations to clamping down on criticism of Israel.

Incredibly skilled? More like incredibly low paid. H1Bs are mostly used now to save money not to fill high skilled jobs. I know US citizens who have 10+ years of experience as software engineers and have been out of work for a year now. The $100k will try to take that advantage away from employers.

While you're making a point in response to a specific post (and the OP), and so you're making a point strictly about Microsoft, an implicit premise that's supposed to strengthen your argument is that only the deep-pocketed Microsoft or its equals are subject to penalties. What about other companies for which this is a less manageable expense?

And is it respectable and okay to switch up the law over the weekend if, and just because, the ones who are affected are large companies? Realistically, what's the rush to have the "law" (Congress?) come into effect two days after its announcement, beside making it a shakedown? Remember that policymakers anticipate, or should anticipate, second-order effects. Either Microsoft forks out $100k per employee, or the cost of coping with the new policy is pushed onto the regular Joe. In any case, this produces a sense of crisis and urgency that you'd criticize if it happened at a measly, inexperienced startup you happened to work at.

The law changes three months ahead? Looks like I'll have to cancel my December plans. But when I'm on a holiday? Sure, let me pack my bags, get back to the nearest airport and take the first transcontinental flight. Or maybe Microsoft is flexible enough to have me shoulder the $100K to stay until the end of my holiday?

I'm not sure how openly the measure was discussed beforehand (and on that point: the employees already have visas; why must they return, unless their visa is about to expire?), but it was promulgated _yesterday_.

There is no mechanism to actually pay the fee

Have you ever worked for a large corporation? Do you think there’s an intranet website where you can just go click on the “Send $100k Wire Now” button?

It’s going to take a long time while Microsoft figures out if they will actually pay these fees and which budget it should come out of.

Meanwhile, if you didn’t return by Sunday, you’re locked out of the country and unable to show up for work which will result in your termination fairly soon.

Many people on H1Bs work for nonprofits or hospitals, or are otherwise publicly funded.