Trump’s H-1B fee order ‘caught everyone off guard’

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon said Tuesday the country’s largest bank will “be engaging with stakeholders and policymakers” on the Trump administration’s recent executive order adding a $100,000 fee to a widely used foreign worker program, known as the H-1B visa.

“That caught everyone off guard,” Dimon said in a television interview with India’s CNBC-TV18. “We had a lot of phone calls over the weekend — what does this mean?”

“We’ll be engaging with stakeholders and policymakers,” Dimon said in a separate interview with the Times of India newspaper.

Dimon, who has previously expressed support for the Trump administration’s move to secure the US southern border, said he believes in “merit-based immigration” and wants to “engage with the government on the issue.”

“I believe in merit-based immigration, and as a matter of fact, I would beg the president, he has accomplished border control — that’s great. I think all nations want real border control. It helps make a nation. But after that, we should have good immigration,” said Dimon during the television interview.

The H-1B visa was established by the Immigration Act of 1990. This immigration card allows US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers for jobs that require a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Unveiled and signed Friday afternoon in the Oval Office, the Trump administration’s new executive order mandates a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas and impacts an estimated 730,000 holders.

US businesses that sponsor skilled foreign workers had a roller-coaster weekend trying to understand how they would be impacted by the proclamation.

The government altered its messaging on the order over the weekend when Trump’s team offered an apparent 180-degree turn on key specifics, such as whether this fee will be annual and whether it will ever be paid by existing visa holders.

Within the US financial sector, no company sponsored more H-1B visas last year than JPMorgan Chase. In 2024, the company ranked as the eighth-largest corporate sponsor along with tech giants Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), and retail giant Walmart (WMT), according to US government data.

“For us, visas matter because we move people around globally — experts who get promoted to new jobs in different markets,” Dimon told the Times of India newspaper.

“Hopefully,” Dimon said, he or his company will engage with the government on the issue. Dimon added that, before taking office, Trump did say publicly that he wanted “more merit-based immigration.”

During his first term as president, Trump endorsed a merit-based immigration proposal. Last year, while campaigning, Trump said during a podcast interview co-hosted by David Sacks, the White House’s current AI and crypto czar, that he wanted to make it easier for educated foreigners to work in the US.

“What I will do is, you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” Mr. Trump said during an episode of the All-In podcast.

Meanwhile, Dimon said today, “I’ve heard him say publicly, more merit-based immigration, good seasonal workers stay, DACA stays … I agree with him on those kinds of things. And so, we’ll hopefully be engaged with the government on this too.”

A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment.

David Hollerith covers the financial sector, ranging from the country’s biggest banks to regional lenders, private equity firms, and the cryptocurrency space.

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