In September, the Trump administration announced $100,000 fees for H-1B visas. H-1B visas allow employers in the United States to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations – jobs with a specialized body of knowledge, often requiring a bachelor's degree or higher. According to data from the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of workers on H-1B visas hold computer-related positions. Other fields include engineering, education, administrative positions and healthcare, which makes up about 25% of total positions.
Denver based immigration attorney Samantha Wolfe represents clients who hire workers using a variety of visas. She said the fines only apply to new H-1B visas – not ones that have already been issued – but there has already been a chilling effect.
“We process H-1B visas every day,” said Wolfe. “I have not had a single employer be willing to pay that fee.”
Wolfe worked closely in the last Legislative session with Devil’s Tower Senator Ogden Driskill. Driskill introduced a bill that would have given provisional medical licenses to international physicians as a way to address Wyoming’s healthcare workforce shortage. The bill passed the Senate but was not heard in the House. Wolfe is concerned that the new cost of the H-1B visas could add to this shortage.
“Recruiting outside of the U.S., which is a common tactic, especially for nurses, for nursing shortages, I would anticipate that to just really dry up,” she said.
Wyoming currently has about 50 H-1B beneficiaries. Nine of them are employed in healthcare organizations across the state.
“I wouldn’t say it’s widely used,” said Eric Boley, with the Wyoming Hospital Association (WHA). “And I’ve often wondered why.”
According to Boley, recruiting clinicians to Wyoming’s rural communities can be a challenge. He said there are already major healthcare workforce shortages, driven in part by Wyoming’s aging population.
“We got all this pent up demand and need for care,” said Boley. “But we’re not replacing the workforce that is now transitioning into needing the care.”
Boley pointed to family practice and obstetrics and gynecology as areas of particular demand. He said WHA is interested in exploring ways to recruit international physicians to the state to address the growing shortage.
“I actually think there’s great opportunity for providers of all sorts to come into our state. I think they might really enjoy the lifestyle,” he said. “We gotta look at everything possible out there.”
However, Boley did express that the new fees on H-1B visas might make exploring that pathway challenging.
“I think any of our hospitals would have a hard time paying the $100K fine, and most of our small [ones] would not even consider it,” Boley wrote in an email.
Wolfe expressed concern that these new fines point to a larger pattern.
“A key here is that this has been a lot of dismantling of legal immigration,” she said.
