The Truth About Trump’s $100K H-1B Visa Fee

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Confusion and panic swept airports and embassies after the new $100,000 H-1B visa fee was announced. In this episode:

• Why current H-1B holders don’t need to worry about reentry or renewals
• How the fee only applies to new applications in the next lottery cycle
• Why big firms like Disney could still pay up if they want foreign talent
• The original intent of H-1B visas — and how abuse of the system led us here

The headlines are full of noise — here’s the clarity you need on what this change actually means.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it will have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ah, right, a little H one B visa clarity right now,
because you had both sides, you know, grasping their pearls
and freaking out, and other ones throwing a party. On
the other side with this H one B one hundred
thousand dollars application fee, people on the far right very

(00:39):
much against people that are against the H one D
visas were throwing a party thinking that all of a
sudden you're going to have a massive amount of people
that are being thrown out of the country. In fact,
there was so little clarity when this came out. People
that have H one B visas that were overseas came

(01:00):
rushing back to the United States. Yeah, there was a
clamor at airports and people changing flights because they were scared.
Certain embassies were issuing warnings saying, hey, listen, don't leave
the United States. It could be in trouble. Okay, here's
a little clarity and how this thing is going to work.
It's not an annual fee. Okay. So if Disney, for example,

(01:25):
because they did this, we ripped this maybe about yeah wow, man,
about ten years ago Disney was basically firing Americans and
they were replacing them with H one B visa holders.
This was outside of Orlando.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I've never had this.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Let's say Disney does this, they want to bring someone
new in, they have to pay a one time application
fee of one hundred thousand dollars. It's not annual, okay.
Those again, those who already hold H one B visas
and are currently outside of the country are not going
to be charged one hundred thousand dollars to re enter

(02:04):
H one B visa holders. They can go, they can go,
They can come back the same extent they normally would.
Nothing has been impacted. This only is going to apply
to new visas, not renewals, and not current visa holders. Okay,

(02:24):
next lottery cycle, that's what's going to happen. So again,
it'll slow this down to some degree with certain H
one B visas. Other highly recruited I mean, certain companies
will have no problem paying this if they feel like

(02:44):
that they need these workers and this talent, especially if
it's obviously a higher level, and quite frankly, that's what
the H one D visa was designated for in the
first place. Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com