Trump is upping the price of Big Tech’s favorite visa
Trump is upping the price of Big Tech’s favorite visa
特朗普正在提高科技巨头最青睐签证的价格
In the span of a few hours on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would be implementing a fee of over $103,000 on H-1B visas, and news broke that the State Department plans on revoking the visas of up to 200,000 asylum seekers — which, according to The Associated Press, would be the largest mass visa revocation in US history.
周一，美国国土安全部在短短几个小时内宣布，将对 H-1B 签证实施超过 10.3 万美元的收费。与此同时，有消息称美国国务院计划撤销多达 20 万名寻求庇护者的签证——据美联社报道，这将是美国历史上最大规模的签证撤销行动。
More than a year into President Donald Trump’s second term, it’s become clear that the only way Trump can get the deportation numbers he wants is by stripping legal immigrants of status. Beyond having ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arrest, detain, and deport immigrants, the administration is pressuring noncitizens to “self-deport,” in some cases imposing civil fines on them and threatening to seize their assets. It’s creating legal hurdles not only for new legal immigrants but for those already in the country, and in the process, likely hurting businesses and social services nationwide.
在唐纳德·特朗普总统第二个任期开始一年多后，显而易见的是，特朗普想要实现其预期的驱逐人数，唯一的方法就是剥夺合法移民的身份。除了让美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）逮捕、拘留和驱逐移民外，政府还在向非公民施压，要求他们“自我驱逐”，在某些情况下甚至对他们处以民事罚款并威胁没收其资产。这不仅为新移民，也为已经在国内的移民制造了法律障碍，并在此过程中可能损害全国范围内的企业和社会服务。
H-1B visas are often seen as synonymous with Big Tech, in no small part because Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft are the three biggest employers of H-1B workers. A federal judge struck down Trump’s previous attempt to raise the cost of these high-skilled employment visas in June, but not until over 70 employers paid the $100,000 fee. Now Trump wants to raise the cost to $103,265. Advocates and business leaders are worried Trump will soon come after the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which DHS hinted may soon carry a $100,000 fee of its own. OPT lets international students work in their field of study for 12 months, with extensions of up to 24 months for some STEM students and additional extensions for holders of certain graduate degrees.
H-1B 签证常被视为科技巨头的代名词，很大程度上是因为亚马逊、Meta 和微软是 H-1B 员工的三大雇主。今年 6 月，一名联邦法官驳回了特朗普此前提高此类高技能就业签证费用的尝试，但在此之前，已有超过 70 家雇主支付了 10 万美元的费用。现在，特朗普计划将费用提高到 103,265 美元。倡导者和商业领袖担心，特朗普很快会对“选择性实习训练”（OPT）项目下手，国土安全部已暗示该项目可能很快也会被征收 10 万美元的费用。OPT 允许国际学生在所学领域工作 12 个月，部分 STEM 学生可延长至 24 个月，持有特定研究生学位者还可获得额外延期。
“This is clearly unlawful,” said Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration reform organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech executives in 2013. “We don’t have to guess what this is for. This is to get rid of the OPT and H-1B program, which will have upstream and downstream devastating consequences: companies will be started elsewhere, people will be hired elsewhere.”
“这显然是不合法的，”由马克·扎克伯格和其他科技高管于 2013 年创立的移民改革组织 FWD.us 的总裁托德·舒尔特（Todd Schulte）表示。“我们不必猜测这是为了什么。这是为了废除 OPT 和 H-1B 项目，这将产生毁灭性的上下游后果：公司将在其他地方创办，员工将在其他地方被雇佣。”
This won’t just hurt the tech industry. The previous fee hike exacerbated labor shortages at rural hospitals across the country and Alaska public schools, both of which have increasingly turned to high-skilled immigrant workers in the wake of local population decline. If the $100,000 fee was an inconvenience for Amazon and Meta, it was utterly catastrophic for rural communities already having trouble attracting qualified candidates.
这不仅会伤害科技行业。之前的费用上涨加剧了全国农村医院和阿拉斯加公立学校的劳动力短缺，由于当地人口减少，这两者越来越依赖高技能移民工人。如果说 10 万美元的费用对亚马逊和 Meta 来说只是不便，那么对于那些本就难以吸引合格候选人的农村社区来说，这简直是灾难性的。
Foreign workers aren’t the only legal immigrants Trump is targeting. According to the AP, which broke the news, the State Department will rescind up to 200,000 business and travel visas issued between 2016 and 2026 to people who applied for asylum after arriving in the US. Beyond limiting their ability to travel outside the country, this move won’t change much for asylum seekers who came to the US on nonimmigrant visas — at least not for now. But Schulte said the visa revocations are part of Trump’s efforts to gut the humanitarian immigration system. “Every single other pathway is harder, outlawed, eliminated, more bureaucratic, more difficult across the board,” he said. “It’s an all-of-government approach.”
外国工人并不是特朗普针对的唯一合法移民群体。据率先报道此消息的美联社称，美国国务院将撤销 2016 年至 2026 年间签发的、发给抵达美国后申请庇护的人员的 20 万份商务和旅游签证。除了限制他们出国旅行的能力外，此举对持非移民签证来美的寻求庇护者影响不大——至少目前如此。但舒尔特表示，撤销签证是特朗普旨在摧毁人道主义移民系统努力的一部分。“每一个其他的途径都变得更难、被取缔、被消除、官僚主义更严重，全面变得更加困难，”他说。“这是一种全政府式的手段。”
The administration is framing this change as a way of closing a loophole in the asylum system: people coming to the country on nonimmigrant visas, ostensibly for work or pleasure, only to ask for asylum upon setting foot in the country.
政府将这一变化描述为填补庇护系统漏洞的一种方式：人们持非移民签证进入美国，表面上是为了工作或旅游，但一踏入美国国境就申请庇护。
“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told the AP.
“我们正在与国土安全部协调，识别并撤销那些声称是短期访客、随后却申请庇护以永久居留美国的外国人的非移民签证，”美国国务院发言人汤米·皮戈特（Tommy Pigott）告诉美联社。
But the people who applied for asylum this way didn’t break any laws. In fact, a person needs to be present on US soil to apply for asylum; there’s no way to apply from outside the country. And Trump has closed most other avenues for humanitarian migration. There’s an effective “asylum ban” in place at the US-Mexico border. Refugee admissions have dropped to record lows, and the administration is now prioritizing the resettlement of white South Africans and denying almost everyone else.
但以这种方式申请庇护的人并没有触犯任何法律。事实上，一个人必须身处美国境内才能申请庇护；在境外是无法申请的。而且特朗普已经关闭了大多数其他人道主义移民途径。美墨边境实际上已经实施了“庇护禁令”。难民接收人数已降至历史最低点，政府目前优先安置白人南非人，并拒绝了几乎所有其他人。
In his second term, Trump has shown that the only immigrants he wants are those who look a certain way — or who can pay a small fortune for the privilege of working in America.
在第二个任期内，特朗普已经表明，他想要的唯一移民是那些长相符合特定要求的人，或者那些能够支付巨额财富以换取在美国工作特权的人。