The Daily Populous Sunday September 21st, 2025 evening edition
Authored by techcrunch.com and submitted by thebelsnickle1991

Large tech companies have responded to President Donald Trump’s dramatic changes to H-1B visa applications by telling employees with those visas to remain in the United States, according to multiple media reports.

The White House announced Friday that Trump had signed a proclamation requiring employers to pay a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications. In response, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft reportedly emailed their employees telling those with H-1B visas to stay in the United States and avoid foreign travel for now — and if they’re already traveling, to try to return before the proclamation takes effect at 12:01am Eastern on Sunday.

Business Insider published the memos from Amazon and Microsoft, while Sources published a similar memo from Google. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment. TechCrunch has also reached out to Amazon and Google.

According to government data, Amazon employees have received the most H-1B visas so far this fiscal year, followed by Tata Consultancy Services, then Microsoft, Meta, and Apple, with Google ranked sixth.

Meanwhile, a White House official told Axios that the fee will only apply to new applicants, not existing H-1B holders or renewals. And White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X that “H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent as they normally would; whatever ability they have to do that is not impacted by yesterday’s proclamation.”

This post has been updated with a quote from Karoline Leavitt.

bookchaser on September 21st, 2025 at 15:36 UTC »

Translation: Amazon, Google and Microsoft are going to bend the knee to Trump. The order states the White House can make exceptions for specific companies (those who follow Trump's commands).

Never mind that these three corporations can well afford to hire domestically and pay people their worth. They choose not to. They choose to become collaborators.

1esproc on September 21st, 2025 at 14:50 UTC »

Why does being on an H1B but remaining in the US change anything?

WhyAmINotStudying on September 21st, 2025 at 11:55 UTC »

The idea of being a foreign worker, legal or not, in a country that is actively renditioning foreign people people directly into prisons in third party countries is insane.