Educational institutions and private employers in Southwest and Southside Virginia are navigating changes the Trump administration has made to a visa that foreign workers use.
President Donald Trump signed an order last month that required a $100,000 payment in order to receive an H-1B visa, effective Sept. 21. The H-1B program allows for temporary employment of “nonimmigrant aliens” in jobs that require “highly specialized knowledge” and at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the Department of Labor website.
It applies to health care workers, educators, workers involved in Department of Defense research and development projects and to “fashion models of distinguished merit and ability,” according to the Labor website.
The visa was created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, according to the Pew Research Center, and has been used to staff high-skill jobs that are difficult to fill, but according to Trump’s executive order, the visa program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
In previous years, the fee was between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on the size of the employer, according to the American Immigration Council.
Virginia Tech employs 298 people with H-1Bs, mostly researchers and teachers, including “a few” whose visas were approved but haven’t started there yet, according to university spokesman Mark Owczarski. University data online shows that 3,468 faculty and staff work for the institution.
In a recent email exchange, Owczarski said that the university is urging caution to current H-1B visa holders regarding travel, but colleagues at other institutions have told Virginia Tech officials that their H-1B employees have been able to return to the U.S. without issues since the order dropped.
“Suffice to say it is something we’re watching closely and will provide our community with updates as new information comes forward,” he wrote.
The university offers information about immigration and other issues for its community at gss.vt.edu.
The Labor Department has announced that it has already reached its congressionally mandated cap of 65,000 for H-1B applications and 20,000 applications for the advanced degree exemption, or “master’s cap,” for fiscal year 2026. Universities are exempt from that cap, however.
A bill introduced in Congress would eliminate that exemption. But the Colleges for the American People Act of 2025, sponsored by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., would not retroactively affect current visa holders, according to information at Cotton’s website.
Roanoke College does not expect a significant impact from the Trump order, and no pending hires will be affected, a spokeswoman said in an email exchange. The college declined to say how many H-1B visa holders work there. Radford University has six employees who fall under the H-1B category, according to a spokesman.
Officials at Washington and Lee University and Liberty University did not reply to emails seeking information and comments.
A University of Virginia spokeswoman confirmed that it employs 420 university and medical center employees with H-1B visas. The university “is still in the process of understanding” the president’s visa proclamation and its ramifications, UVa deputy spokesperson Bethanie Glover wrote in a Friday email.
“Based on our preliminary analysis, we have informed current employees who hold H1B visas that they are free to travel internationally, but that they should do so with caution,” Glover wrote. “We will share more information with that population and others who are interested as we learn more.”
Legal action initiated
Private-sector businesses appear largely reluctant to discuss the issue.
Framatome, a French nuclear services firm that has its North American headquarters in Lynchburg, and Blacksburg-based Torc Robotics, a developer of autonomous driving software, declined to comment. Roanoke-based Virginia Transformer, a manufacturer of electrical transformers, acknowledged a reporter’s inquiry but did not offer further comment.
All have previously petitioned the federal government for permission to employ H1-B visa workers, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.
“Numerous” Southwest Virginia businesses with employees on H-1B visas have called law firm Woods Rogers Vandeventer Black, according to principal and immigration expert John Francisco. The Roanoke-based firm declined to identify specific clients, a spokeswoman said via email. The spokeswoman shared a statement from Francisco.
“Almost all such employees are experiencing a high degree of anxiety and are looking to employers to give them advice on their status, options, and future plans,” Francisco’s statement read, in part. “Given the clarification from the White House … that the fee is only going to be imposed on visas granted after September 21, 2025, the immediate panic has subsided somewhat, but there is still concern about future hiring strategies and practices going forward for new H1-B hires planned for next year. In addition, there is concern about the future of the H1-B visa process in general.”
In a recent post on its website, the firm hinted at future litigation.
“Employers must follow these developments closely; the timing of any injunction could determine whether it is prudent to remit payment or wait for a court ruling,” the post read.
The Associated Press and other outlets reported a legal challenge filed late last week, in which health care providers, religious groups, university professors and others filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco to stop a plan that has “thrown employers, workers and federal agencies into chaos.”
Unclear impact at Virginia Tech
Multiple details remain unresolved at Virginia Tech, including whether “change of status” petitions for those moving from student status to H-1B will count as new petitions, Owczarski wrote. Nor is it clear if an H-1B employee moving to Virginia Tech and filing a “change of employer” petition will be considered new.
“So, for now, our H-1B requests for extensions and amendments are being processed as normal,” he wrote.
Cap-exempt institutions such as Virginia Tech do not apply for the visas via an H-1B lottery, as other concerns must. But it was unclear to university officials if that exemption, should it survive congressional action, would be completely exempt from the new fee.
Staff writer Matt Busse contributed information to this report.
