New $100,000 fee for H-1B visa could hamper Long Island employers' ability to hire the skilled workers, experts say

President Donald Trump’s latest executive order on immigration would likely make it much harder for Long Island businesses to hire highly skilled foreign workers and could contribute to a local brain drain, labor experts and local economists said.

Trump’s order, imposing a $100,000 fee for new applicants to enter the country through the H-1B visa program, which went into effect Sunday, is meant to level the playing field for American workers, according to the White House.

H-1B visas are typically used in industries where the unemployment rate is low, like technology, engineering and medicine, said Ben Rissing, associate professor of organizational behavior at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. The visa, he said, "has been so popular because U.S. firms have difficulty finding workers with these particular skill sets, given the available pool of U.S. workers."

On Tuesday, the Trump administration proposed further changes to the H-1B visa selection process.

He proposed replacing the H-1B lottery system with a weighted selection process based on skill set and salary being offered to prospective hires instead of the current randomized lottery, according to Bloomberg. The process would give more weight to higher-paying positions.

On Long Island, the technology, higher education and health care sectors, including Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory, attract thousands of H-1B visa workers in a range of jobs from physicians to software developers. In 2023, employers in the metropolitan area were approved for more than 55,000 H-1B visas for foreign hires, according to Pew Research Center report released in March.

The new fees could have a significant impact on Long Island's economy and slow the pace of business growth, local experts said.

"The new H-1B visa fee could negatively impact Long Island’s innovation economy since many of our high-tech businesses and research institutions rely on this international pool of talent to advance scientific discoveries so companies can expand," said Matt Cohen, president and CEO of the Long Island Association business group, in a statement.

Local universities, including Hofstra and Stony Brook, and Northwell Health said they are monitoring the situation and speaking with government officials to better understand the potential impact of the order.

Here's what to know about the new increase in H-1B visa fees.

What is an H-1B visa?

H-1B visas are temporary, nonimmigrant visas that allow employers to hire highly educated foreign workers for occupations that require a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, according to the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit research and immigration policy advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The number of visas — which last three years and can be extended to six years — are capped by the federal government at 65,000 a year. An additional 20,000 spots are reserved for foreign professionals with a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. school.

Under Tuesday's proposed rule, applicants would receive multiple entries into the H-1B selection pool based on wage offers, with salaries being broken into wage levels 1 through 4, Bloomberg reported. Applicants at the highest level, earning average salaries of $162,528, would get four entries, while those at the lowest level would get one.

Why did the White House make the change?

The visas have "been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor," according to a Friday White House statement announcing the increased fees. Some employers have abused the H-1B program "to artificially suppress wages," the statement said.

Which companies are most likely to hire workers with H-1B visas?

Typically, employers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics field tend to make up the majority of those that sponsor H-1B visa holders.

Northwell Health, Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Lab are among major employers on Long Island that hire H-1B workers, according to database figures from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Northwell, the largest private employer in the state, was approved to hire roughly 615 H-1B visa workers between 2020 and 2025, according to the agency. Stony Brook University hired about 415 H-1B visa workers, and Brookhaven National Laboratory hired 410 during the same period.

On Monday, the White House said physicians and medical residents may be exempted from the order, according to Bloomberg Law News.

Hofstra University has 23 workers who also are H-1B holders, said Terry Coniglio, vice president of marketing and communications at the university.

"The University will discuss how to best guide and support international talent interested in joining Hofstra," Coniglio said in a statement emailed to Newsday.

Stony Brook University said in an emailed statement: "We are continuing to monitor federal actions and working with our partners in state government to analyze any potential impact on our extraordinary students and health care professionals."

Barbara Osborn, deputy chief public relations officer at Northwell, said in a statement: "We are closely monitoring developments and assessing potential impact to our team members and operations."

Who pays the application fee for H1-B visas?

Employers who sponsor H1-B visa applicants typically pay for their fees, which include filing and processing charges.

On top of an initial $215 lottery entrance fee, it can cost employers thousands of dollars based on their size to sponsor hires, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, a national trade group for HR professionals.

Increasing the filing fee to $100,000 represents a significant increase that could discourage employers, Rissing said, and is "likely going to price out many employers."

What is the impact on Long Island's economy?

Steven Kent, chief economist for the Long Island Association, said the rollout of the new H-1B visa fees not only hampers the ability of employers to hire the skilled workers they need — and can’t find locally — but also is another example of the White House’s record of announcing sweeping regulatory changes with little warning.

"For Long Island companies that are trying to grow, it is hard enough to make decisions and to spend capital, but it’s even harder to do that if you don’t know if you will have the employees to do that, or if your cost of goods sold will be higher because of tariffs," Kent said.

"They’re spending time trying to figure out all of these things rather than figuring out how to grow business," Kent said.

The impact on local tech is likely to be mixed based on company size, local businesses said.

Paul Trapani, co-founder of software developer PassTech Development LLC in Plainview, said it’s the larger U.S. tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google that have used H-1B visas.

"I’ve only known a few companies that do an H-1B hire here or there," said Trapani, who also serves as president of the Long Island Software & Technology Network, a trade group. "But it’s not like they are doing it on a larger scale."

How much do H-1B workers contribute to the economy?

Those with H-1B visas and their spouses contribute $86 billion annually to the U.S. economy, according to figures from FWD.us, a Washington, D.C.-based immigration and justice reform advocacy group. Of that total, an estimated $24 billion goes to federal and payroll taxes, the group said.