COMMENTARY
Policy Whiplash: High Skilled Immigrants and International Students in the Second Trump Administration
By Ava Hu
November 18, 2025
For foreign workers trying to build a life in the U.S., the price tag keeps climbing, and a new presidential proclamation has now put an exact price on it: $100,000.
President Trump signed a proclamation last month imposing a $100,000 fee for each new H-1B visa. The proclamation’s ambiguous wording has led to widespread confusion. Early guidance from federal agencies, Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, left several key questions unanswered, including whether universities could continue using cap-exempt H-1B slots and whether international students would need to remain in the country to avoid the $100,000 payment. In October, USCIS clarified that the rule applies only to beneficiaries outside the U.S. without valid H-1B visas, and that universities’ cap-exempt status remains unaffected.
While CBP and USCIS guidance has drawn a much tighter circle than the initial framing, it remains unclear whether universities can still use their traditional cap-exempt H-1B slots, or whether international students would have to stay in the country to avoid paying the new fee, and there is no system in place to collect the fee yet.
These new policies have made it increasingly costly and uncertain for universities to hire international scholars. On Sept. 23, the Department of Homeland Security proposed scrapping the H-1B lottery in favor of a weighted system that gives higher-paid applicants better odds. While current immigration law exempts universities and their affiliated research institutions from the H-1B lottery, an exemption that Sen. Tom Cotton has proposed repealing.
More than 13,000 H-1B workers have joined over 200 U.S. research and land-grant universities this fiscal year, an analysis from The Xylom found. Keeping up that level of hiring under the new $100,000 fee could eat up as much as 50 percent of their federal research budgets, according to the report.
The debate over H-1B visas and international students has exposed an ideological split within the Republican Party, between business conservatives who view global talent as key to America’s competitiveness, and social conservatives who see immigration as a threat to domestic workers.
President Trump himself has oscillated between these two camps, at times saying that up to 600,000 Chinese students could come to the United States, or suggesting that international students who graduate from U.S. colleges should be given green cards. But President Trump has also accused the H-1B program of undercutting American workers and fueling an atmosphere of generalized suspicion toward Chinese and other Asian students.
On May 9, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Department of State would aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party or those studying in “critical fields.” That same month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that Harvard had failed to provide information on Chinese students and had therefore lost its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification — meaning all of the university’s international students would lose their legal status in the U.S. On Sept. 9, The House moved forward with a spending bill that could effectively bring back the China Initiative, a deeply controversial program that terrorized Chinese-American scientists and scholars before it was shut down in 2022.
Even if some students eventually regain access to visa sponsorship, the reputational damage and uncertainty have already reshaped how international students and researchers assess the risks of coming to the U.S. An AAPI Data report found that the number of students from Asia coming to the U.S. has fallen by nearly half over the past decade, reaching its lowest level in ten years during Trump’s first term.
Compared with a year ago, the number of F-1 visas issued to Asian students has dropped sharply under the new administration. India saw one of the steepest declines, down 40 percent, about 4,000 fewer visas than last year. Recent data from the Institute for International Education showed that new international student enrollment declined 17 percent between fall 2024 and fall 2025.
Meanwhile, the back-and-forth over immigration policy has raised deep concerns about the stability of America’s talent pipeline, especially among immigrant communities.
According to a 2024 AAPI Data/AP-NORC Survey, AAPI adults are far more likely than the general public to view legal immigration as an asset: 79% said it is a major benefit for U.S. economic growth, compared with just 42% of the general public. And 73% of AAPI adults see skilled labor in science and technology as a major benefit, versus 41% of the broader population.
There is also growing anxiety about the impact on higher education. In the May 2025 AP-NORC Survey, a majority of AAPI adults said they were extremely or very concerned about rising student loan debt (63%), restrictions on free speech on college campuses (57%), and federal cuts to university research (56%). 62% of AAPI adults opposed arresting or deporting students who had been involved with on-campus protests.
Whether through direct cuts to research funding or a broader climate of intimidation and fear toward Asian communities, the effect is the same: a disrupted talent pipeline.
In May, when DHS announced it was revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology responded within a day, pledging to unconditionally admit affected students and “facilitate a seamless transition for interested students.”
Similarly, in August, China’s State Council introduced a new K-class visa aimed at attracting “international young professionals in scientific and technological fields.” While details about the application process remain limited, a memo from the National Immigration Administration stated that the visa will be open to applicants with at least a bachelor’s degree and will not require employer sponsorship.
“As a predominantly foreign-born population, AAPIs often come to the United States in search of opportunity and access to our quality institutions of higher education,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, executive director and founder of AAPI Data. “These disruptions to the talent pipeline could have adverse impacts on research and development for years to come.”
Indeed, if these U.S. trends continue, the country risks losing an entire generation of researchers — as other nations stand ready to welcome the talent America turns away.
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Ava Hu is pursuing a master’s degree in data and business reporting at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work has covered campaign finance, city budgets and public records, including recent stories on higher education and immigration published by The Guardian.