'H-1B fee may drive American jobs abroad'

Indian American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi has warned that a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas could force US companies to move work abroad, hurting the country’s ability to attract skilled professionals and compete globally.

“You can either onshore the talent or offshore the work,” Krishnamoorthi said in an episode of the “Spill the Tea” interview series.

“These companies are not going to just sit by and not do the work,” the Illinois Democrat said.

Krishnamoorthi said during a discussion about barriers to legal immigration, including the $100,000 fee. The interviewer noted that Indian nationals received 71 per cent of all H-1B visas in fiscal year 2024 and asked how the policy would affect Indian Americans and US competitiveness.

“I mean, it adversely affects both, right? Because, our competitiveness depends on attracting the very best talent on earth. Whether it's people from India or China or Sweden. It doesn't matter,” Krishnamoorthi said.

He described the fee as a tax on workers who fill highly specialised technical positions in the US economy.

“And so when you put this, what I, I call it a tax, $100,000 tax on this group of people who, by the way, fill some of the most kind of exquisite techno - technical roles in our economy and have, and, and many of whom have gone on to incubate companies, you know, employing hundreds of thousands of people, you're basically pushing these people away in the first instance, and then probably getting people here to rethink whether they should stay,” he said.

Krishnamoorthi said the approach could increasingly persuade companies to transfer work to other countries.

“And now, you know, that kind of, attitude means that I fear that increasingly companies here are gonna offshore the work,” he said.

The congressman called for changes to the legal immigration system and an end to policies that could weaken the US economy.

“And so that's why, especially in this really competitive economic landscape, we've got to fix our legal immigration system and we've got to stop, you know, these own goals, so to speak, on H1B and, you know, other legal pathways that people have used to enrich our economy,” he said.

Krishnamoorthi also blamed President Donald Trump for what he described as a normalisation of hostility towards minority communities. Asked what was driving a rise in anti-Asian and anti-Indian sentiment, he replied: “It rhymes with Donald Trump.”

He said Trump had played on fears of people seen as outside the mainstream and blamed them for the economic difficulties faced by others. “And I think that that has now metastasized over 10 years into almost like a normalization of hate,” he said.

The H-1B programme allows US employers to hire foreign professionals for speciality occupations requiring specialised knowledge. Technology and consulting companies have traditionally been among its largest users.

Krishnamoorthi has represented Illinois’ 8th Congressional District since 2017. He holds a mechanical engineering degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard Law School.