$3,800 Flights and Aborted Takeoffs: How Trump’s H-1B Announcement Panicked Tech Workers

Six weeks later The business trip, Xiayun, an employee of the semiconductor company in the Silicon Valley, fell in her hometown in China for vacation when she saw the news about H-1B visas. Friday afternoon, US President Donald Trump has signed an advertisement saying that any H-1B visa holder in the United States would be “restricted, with the exception of foreigners accompanied by their offers or their completion by paying $ 100,000.” The news Xiayun and hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have left prevented to find out how they were affected and if they were, if they were outside, they should return before Sunday, when the new valid base was appointed.

Xiayun, who requested the use of the name of the pseudonym online and not to mention the name of her employer in the story to avoid identifying it, claims that she started receiving contacts from her manager asking her to think about returning as soon as possible to avoid fees. Before she met her family at the airport, she says she has already decided to return to the United States as soon as possible. I only stayed in Oromi for two hours before moving on the next trip to California.

“I was looking for the opportunity to travel with my father for a long time, but the reality is, I can’t leave behind my husband, leg, home, friends and work in the United States,” I told WIRED.

H-1B is one of the most common work visas, issued to skilled workers looking for temporary residence in the United States for up to three years, with the possibility of continuous employment. In 2019, USCis services (USCIS) estimated that there were more than 580,000 immigrants carrying H-1B visas in the country. Silicon Valley companies are the largest user of the program, according to the data collected by USCis on employers who obtained the largest number of H-1B visas each year. In the 2025 fiscal year, the best companies sponsoring new H-1B visas Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google.

By Friday evening, Microsoft, Google and Amazon sent urgent contacts to foreign employees, according to email messages reviewed by WIRED, by advising them to return to the states before the final date on the specified Sunday in the announcement.

The conflicting messages were poured from the White House, US Trade Minister Howard Lottenic, journalist Caroline Levitte, and other government social media accounts. “Things change every hour, every 30 minutes,” says Stephen Brown, a Reddy Neumann Brown PC. Lutnick claimed that the $ 100,000 fees will be imposed annually, and others said it is one -time fee; The original announcement did not exempt the current visa holders, but the follow -up ads did. The new contradictions and developments have left legal migrant workers, their families and employers who are not sure of what must be believed during the weekend last weekend.

WIRED spoke to six H-1B visa holders who made decisions at the last minute to return to the United States from leave or work trips before the new policy takes. All of them asked to be recognized by their first or last names in this story, for fear that speaking against the administration will lead to revenge. While the explanations published by the administration on Saturday afternoon showed that most of the H-1B visa holders who were outside the country at that time did not actually need to rush, at that time they claim that they have already lost thousands of dollars in changing their travel plans and spent two days in emotional pressure.