Trump's visa fee sparks rare bipartisan interest in immigration legislation
President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose a massive new fee for employers seeking to hire foreign workers in high-skill fields have reenergized congressional Republicans' efforts to pass legislation strengthening the controversial visa program.
After years of dissipating interest inside the GOP to tackle any immigration policy not directly tied to border security, the current moment appears ripe for a legislative breakthrough around expanding the use of so-called H-1B visas, which have propelled the country’s tech industry for decades.
Opponents say the 35-year-old program siphons jobs from American citizens and unfairly deflates wages. But it also has united an unlikely group of lawmakers across the ideological spectrum who want to help businesses in need of workers with specialized expertise. That contingent includes Republicans who have typically been reluctant to support legislation that would allow more immigrants into the country.
The recent presidential proclamation forcing employers to pay $100,000 to hire workers under H-1B visas — a move designed to incentivize domestic hiring practices — is instilling fear and confusion inside hospitals and universities that rely on the program. It also has sent a jolt through the Senate, where the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee recently reintroduced legislation designed to strengthen the rules for the program and prioritize applicants with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
“We need an immigration bill, badly,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a cosponsor of the bill who is working to get fellow conservatives on board with the effort. He’s also running for governor of a state with multiple major research universities.
“I think Trump, perhaps inadvertently, is strengthening our case for the bill,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), another co-sponsor of the legislation.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, however, are skeptical there is sufficient political will to make any meaningful progress on the issue. Immigration hard-liners still occupy senior positions throughout the White House and hold power on Capitol Hill; Trump has waffled on the question of whether the H-1B policy is worth preserving; and at least one key Democrat says any conservative enthusiasm now to tackle the program is too little, too late.
“There's no appetite for immigration legislation at all,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is set to retire in 2027 with little to show for his work over nearly three decades in office to pass legislation that would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
The American economy relies heavily on H-1B visas, with the number of people applying for slots vastly outnumbering those which are available each year. And this is not the first time lawmakers have seen a glimmer of hope around efforts to overhaul the program — only to later see it fade.
Almost a year ago, the billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk was touting high-skilled immigration throughout the United States through H-1B visas, saying they were necessary to help fuel innovation. Trump, who suspended the program during his first term, suddenly appeared ready to side with Musk, lauding the initiative that he claimed to have leveraged for his own business interests.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a MAGA stalwart and Musk acolyte, also signaled an openness to revisiting the H-1B system from his perch as chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
But Musk has since that time had a public falling-out with the president, and anti-immigration hawks like White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller have Trump’s ear. Trump’s new H-1B visa fee is a reflection of the administration’s current stance.
“Anything that’s going to get done, the president's got to sign off on it,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), “So it's going to be something that the president feels comfortable with.”
Scott worked on a previous effort to limit the number of H-1B recipients who can receive green cards annually. Different versions of that bill passed the House and the Senate in 2019 and 2020, respectively, but the two measures were never reconciled, and the legislation was never signed into law.
Wishing to seize the moment but also cognizant of the political challenges ahead, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in an interview shifted his comments to deliver a personal plea to Trump himself.
"The president has brought attention to the problems with H-1B’s," the Iowa Republican said. "If the president will read your story, I'd give him this message: He's created great credibility because he has closed down the border — great credibility on immigration issues.”
Endorsing an H-1B overhaul bill, Grassley continued, “would give him a chance to get some of these really simple things in immigration that ought to pass the Congress.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on its intentions to work with Congress on a legislative fix.
George Fishman, a senior legal fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and former Department of Homeland Security official in the first Trump administration, said Trump is being pulled in radically different directions by those advising him. Barring true interest from Trump in the matter, Fishman suspected congressional action is unlikely.
“Based on three decades of bitter experience, I’m sort of resigned to not expecting things to happen legislatively,” said Fishman, who also worked on immigration policy as a Hill aide.
Trump aside, the political dynamics around the immigration issue on Capitol Hill are broadly problematic. For years, efforts to update the nation’s outdated immigration policy have fallen short. A bipartisan Senate “gang” in 2013 managed to pass a bill that combined border security with a pathway to citizenship, but it was never taken up in the House.
Since that time, the Trump ethos around immigration has further polarized the issue, hardening even Republicans who at one point linked their personal brands to being willing to work with Democrats on it.
That includes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was once Durbin’s main partner in trying to pass legislation that would protect young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children — the recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
Graham now says he isn’t interested in doing anything to expand legal immigration until the border is properly secured — and he doesn’t trust Democrats to restrain themselves.
“We all are agreed that we need H-1B reform,” Graham said in an interview. “Well, then Democrats will say, ‘Okay, let's reform that, but what about the DACA folks?’ And they’ll want something there, and that’s just the way it goes.”
Grassley said he understood that reality. "We got some people on the right that think they aren't going to vote for any [immigration] legislation until you load up 12 million people and get them out of the country.”
In the meantime, Trump’s new $100,000 fee is being challenged in court by a coalition of unions, education groups and others who argue the cost is unworkable and unjustified. A judge could strike down the proclamation, and the case is ongoing.
Until then, Grassley suggested the chaos and anxiety being caused by the presidential action could work to the advantage of the program’s proponents.
“The business groups that fought the Grassley-Durbin bill over the last 10 years, that are now upset with the $100,000 the president's putting in on each one of these [visas] … maybe they would realize that they shouldn't have fought our legislation,” he said.
