Border Security Bill Sends H-1B Visa Fees Soaring

Immigration and the perception of runaway federal spending are hot-button political issues as the nation heads into the mid-term elections. With a new border security bill, President Obama has touched on both.

The newly enacted border security bill, signed into law on Friday, enjoyed a remarkably swift journey through Congress. In large measure, its success owed to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s mechanism to fund the bill in full, allowing him to boast that it wouldn’t add to the federal deficit.

But that financing came in the form of steep increases to the application fees for H-1B and L visas, the permits that authorize foreign workers to reside in the United States. The increases only apply to foreign outsourcing companies that use large portions of foreign workers to staff their U.S. operations, but that’s left some Indian firms fuming. Datamation takes a look.

Things are about to get pricey for Indian outsourcing firms doing business in the United States.

That’s because President Obama on Friday signed into law a border security bill largely financed by targeted but steep increases in the application fees for visas extended to guest workers.

Read the full story at Datamation:


H-1B Visa Fees Rise With Border Security Bill