The following is a statement from Association of American Universities President Barbara R. Snyder on the presidential proclamation requiring the $100,000 fee for certain H-1B visa petitions:
We agree with President Trump that it is in our nation’s best interests to welcome the world’s scientific and technical leaders in their areas of expertise to help ensure that cutting-edge breakthroughs will continue to be made right here in America.
However, making H-1B visas so cost-prohibitive that some of the smartest, hardest-working individuals from the rest of the world will no longer be able to contribute here will ultimately harm the U.S. economy while giving our global competitors a leg up on us in the worldwide race for scientific, health, and technological dominance.
Let me be clear: American colleges and universities fill the vast majority of their workforce with domestic U.S. workers. But in creating the H-1B visa, Congress was attuned to the need of American employers “for highly skilled, specially trained personnel to fill increasingly sophisticated jobs for which domestic personnel cannot be found and the need for other workers to meet specific labor shortages.” (H. Rept. 101-723)
American businesses and institutions of higher education alike utilize the H-1B program because the domestic supply of highly skilled workers is not large enough to keep up with the demands of U.S. innovation. America has many high-skilled workers, but as it is also the source of much of the world’s scientific innovation, the domestic supply of high-skilled workers is frequently unable to keep up with employers’ needs.
H-1B positions require highly specialized, often technical, skills and knowledge and as a result are extremely hard to fill. Colleges and universities hire H-1B workers to teach our students, drive cutting-edge technological and scientific research that benefits the nation and our economy, and offer top-notch medical care to all Americans. As a result, the harm of a $100,000 application fee for certain H-1B visa petitions will be felt not just by people within America’s research universities, but by communities, states, and the wider American public.
The harm will also fall upon American workers, as university H-1B employees help spur innovation that generates job opportunities for U.S. workers and offer invaluable training to the next generation of scientists, researchers, and other technological professionals in the United States.
Since America’s research universities submit H-1B petitions throughout the year and not for the annual March lottery, those harms are already being felt right now.
As a result, today we have joined together in a suit, originally filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, seeking to enjoin the implementation of the proclamation requiring the $100,000 fee for certain H-1B visa petitions.
Read the Filing
Founded in 1900, the Association of American Universities is composed of America’s leading research universities. AAU’s 71 research universities transform lives through education, research, and innovation.
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