After a six-week work journey, Xiayun, an worker at a semiconductor firm in Silicon Valley, had landed at her hometown in China for trip when she noticed the information about H-1B visas. On Friday afternoon, US president Donald Trump signed a proclamation saying that any H-1B visa holder’s entry into the US can be “restricted, aside from these aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a cost of $100,000.” The information left Xiayun and tons of of 1000’s of immigrant employees scrambling to determine how they’d be impacted and whether or not, in the event that they have been overseas, they need to return earlier than Sunday, when the brand new rule was set to take impact.
Xiayun, who requested to make use of her on-line alias and never point out her employer’s title within the story to keep away from being recognized, claims she began receiving communications from her supervisor asking her to contemplate returning as quickly as potential to keep away from being charged the charge. Earlier than she even met her household on the airport, she says she already determined to fly again to the US as quickly as potential. She solely stayed in Urumqi for 2 hours earlier than hopping on the subsequent flight again to California.
“I had seemed ahead to the chance of touring with my mother and father for a very long time, however the actuality is, I can’t go away behind my husband, my cat, my home, my buddies, and my job within the US,” she tells WIRED.
H-1B is among the most typical work visas, issued to expert employees looking for non permanent residence within the US so long as three years, with the potential of renewal offering persevering with employment. In 2019, the US Citizenship and Immigration Providers (USCIS) estimated that there have been over 580,000 immigrants holding H-1B visas within the nation. Silicon Valley corporations are this system’s greatest customers, in line with information collected by USCIS on the employers who had probably the most H-1B visas permitted yearly. In fiscal yr 2025, the highest corporations sponsoring new H-1B visas included Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google.
By Friday night, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon had despatched pressing communications to overseas workers, in line with emails reviewed by WIRED, advising them to return to the states earlier than the Sunday deadline set within the proclamation.
Conflicting messages poured out of the White Home, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and different authorities social media accounts. “Issues are altering each hour, each half-hour,” says Steven Brown, an immigration lawyer at Reddy Neumann Brown PC. Lutnick claimed the $100,000 charge could be charged yearly, others mentioned it’s a one-time cost; the unique proclamation didn’t exempt present visa holders, however the follow-up bulletins did. The contradictions and new developments left authorized immigrant employees, their households, and employers not sure what to imagine over the previous weekend.
WIRED talked to 6 H-1B visa holders who made last-minute selections to return to the US from trip or work journeys earlier than the brand new coverage took maintain. All of them requested to be recognized with solely their first or final names on this story, fearing that talking out in opposition to the administration will trigger retribution. Whereas explanations posted by the administration on Saturday afternoon clarified that almost all H-1B visa holders who have been exterior of the nation on the time didn’t really have to rush again, by then they declare that they had already misplaced 1000’s of {dollars} in altering their journey plans and spent two days in emotional stress.
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