He Spent $8K on Flights Over Visa Rule Confusion

The BBC has a story illustrating the weekend confusion that arose after a surprise move by the White House on visas for skilled foreign workers. The outlet speaks to a software worker who spent $8,000 on flights in a mad scramble to return to the US from his native India to beat a perceived deadline. How it played out:

• On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order stipulating that companies must pay a $100,000 fee for applicants of H-1B visas. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, the initial wording was vague—it wasn't clear whether the fee applied to existing workers or only to new applicants, or even whether it was a one-time fee or an annual one.

• Amid that confusion, companies warned H-1B workers who were abroad to get back to the US before the new fee's 12:01am Sunday deadline. In the BBC story, an unidentified tech worker who had returned to India for the anniversary of his father's death booked last-minute flights to get back in time. He offers this sobering assessment of the experience: "I'm regretting the choices I've made in life. I gave the prime of my youth to working for this country [the US] and now I feel like I'm not wanted."
• The US has since clarified that the fee does not affect existing workers and is a one-time fee. But some immigration specialists say that could change. "We believe this is just step one on the government's attack on the H-1B program," Shanon R. Stevenson of the law firm Fisher Phillips tells the Journal.