The US$103K visa fee is a gift to SEA’s talent pool, if the region actually wants it
Every few years, Washington slams a door and Asia is told to catch the people falling out of it. It happened after the dot-com bubble. It happened after the 2020 H-1B tightening. It is happening again now, and the instinct across Southeast Asian boardrooms and government press releases will be the same: cue the victory […] The post The US$103K visa fee is a gift to SEA’s talent pool, if the…
The recent proposal by the Trump administration to increase the annual fee for new H-1B visas to US$103,265 has raised concerns in Southeast Asia. This fee is a significant jump from the previous US$215 charge, and it has caused turmoil in the region's tech industry. The potential impact on the region's talent pool has led to a drop in H-1B registrations and a shift in workers towards other countries, such as Canada, the UK, and the Gulf.
The move has also triggered a debate on whether Southeast Asia has ever truly benefited from this visa fight or has merely been on the losing side, as they have always told themselves.
Written by urgent.news from e27's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
