Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
Government contractors are among the big employers grappling with President Donald Trump’s plan to charge employers $100,000 for new H-1B visas, which allow hundreds of thousands of workers from foreign countries to work in the United States every year. Leading contractors such as Amazon Web Services at the federal level and Deloitte Consulting in Pennsylvania rely on H-1B visas to bring in foreign skilled professionals for their U.S. workforces. Once a supporter of the 35-year-old program, Trump said in a September executive order that he now agrees with critics that “systemic abuse” of the visas has displaced U.S. workers, “discouraging Americans from pursuing careers in science and technology,” and driving down wages. He announced a fee of $100,000 for new H-1B visas, which would significantly boost costs for government contractors and other employers that continue to use the visas. U.S. immigration officials issue up to 85,000 new H-1B visas a year. Generations of engineers and technical workers have moved to the United States to work for government agencies using these visas. Some remain as permanent residents and become citizens. About 50% of all U.S. H-1B visa holders arrive from India, and the percentage is higher in technical fields. More than 80% of Deloitte H-1B visa holders stationed in the Harrisburg area from 2022-2024 originated in India, according to federal visa data. These professionals earned a median of around $100,000 a year. Recruiters promoted the visas extensively in 2000 to help U.S. companies update systems under Y2K programs, said Akanksha Kalra, an immigration attorney in Philadelphia who has represented many H-1B visa holders. Since then the program became so popular among employers and applicants that H-1B visas have been awarded through a lottery. Here’s what you need to know about H-1B visas. Who are the largest employers of H-1B workers in Pennsylvania? Among Pennsylvania-based employers, Deloitte Consulting is by far the top H-1B contractor. More than 3,000 of the 9,930 H-1B visas the government granted in Pennsylvania last year were for Deloitte Consulting and its tax and accounting affiliates. The company ranked among the 10 largest H-1B visa users across the U.S. last year. Pennsylvania was a major Deloitte client, paying $260 million for its services to state health, labor, and transportation programs, among others. How long can people with H-1B visas work in the U.S.? Employers can apply to have H-1B visas extended for a total of six years, boosting the total of H-1B workers in the country at any one time to hundreds of thousands. Spouses of H-1B visa professionals often apply for H-4 work visas. Another program popular with employers, the Optional Practical Training work authorization, is available to foreign students entering the workforce, for up to three years; more than 400,000 were granted in 2024. Which states have the most H-1B workers? Six states — California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania — account for more than half the 283,000 new and returning H-1B visas approved by the federal government for fiscal year 2024, the most recent data available. The largest H-1B employers include Amazon’s Virginia operations, whose clients include the Pentagon and other U.S. security, surveillance, and technology agencies; other Big Tech employers such as Meta, Oracle, and Google; banks such as J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs; and manufacturers, such as automakers General Motors, Ford, and Tesla. Hospitals use the visas to bring in doctors, universities for professors. How does Pennsylvania state government rely on H-1B workers? Besides Deloitte, the visas are popular among small firms that specialize in IT contracting for Pennsylvania state government, according to a check of information technology firms contracted to Pennsylvania state departments under the no-bid Information Technology Supplemental Assistance (ITSA) program, which started in 2010 as a way to add short-term technical project assistance. Payments to ITSA contractors rose from $24 million in 2010 to $188 million last year, spread among hundreds of mostly small and specialized firms, according to data The Inquirer obtained in a Right to Know request. In each year, more than half of ITSA spending went to firms that were granted at least one H-1B visa. Together ITSA firms were awarded 171 H-1B visas last year, not counting Deloitte. What do Pennsylvania officials say about Trump’s $100,000 plan? A spokesperson for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration said state officials are studying Trump’s proposal. State agencies don’t themselves sponsor H-1B visa applicants, and the state “does not have information hired by suppliers through the federal H-1B visa program,” said Dan Egan, a spokesperson for the state Office of Administration. However, OST Inc., the state contractor that oversees hundreds of information technology contractors to more than 30 Pennsylvania state agencies, requires them to report H-1B visa holders, as well as participants in other foreign guest worker programs such as the OPT visa. OST didn’t respond to inquiries. Is a scarcity of Pennsylvania tech talent forcing employers to bring in staff from abroad? The National Bureau of Economic Research says H-1B has reduced employment and wages for U.S. citizen data scientists but also cut technology costs, benefiting the economy. American workers have testified in Congress about being laid off by employers who hired visa holders. Pennsylvania legislators who held hearings on the ITSA program in 2017 did not dispute that the state faced a shortage of tech talent in the Harrisburg area. Contractors said the state should verify visa holders’ education and work experience to avoid overpaying. The Shapiro administration says it has created technology apprenticeship, internship, and fellowship programs that help Pennsylvanians without a college degree qualify for state tech jobs and help fill IT positions. Several publicly traded companies formerly based in central Pennsylvania, including TE Connectivity, Enviri, and Rite Aid moved their headquarters from the Harrisburg area to the Philadelphia metropolitan area in recent years. Each cited the difficulty finding American tech workers and managers willing to live in Central Pennsylvania. Why is Trump so interested in H-1B visas? In his Sept. 19 executive order, Trump noted that the visas are supposed to go to people who could do “high-skilled” jobs that Americans aren’t doing — but, he said, technology employers “have abused the H-1B statute and its regulations to artificially suppress wages” to the disadvantage of U.S. workers. That’s a switch for Trump, who last December defended H-1B. “I’ve always liked the visas. I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump told the New York Post last December. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.” How are business and labor reacting to Trump’s H-1B plan?
