{"id":32736,"date":"2025-09-24T08:32:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T08:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/im-an-international-student-worried-about-h-1b-visa-changes-now-im-hunting-for-tech-jobs-in-canada-and-abroad\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T08:32:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T08:32:41","slug":"im-an-international-student-worried-about-h-1b-visa-changes-now-im-hunting-for-tech-jobs-in-canada-and-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/im-an-international-student-worried-about-h-1b-visa-changes-now-im-hunting-for-tech-jobs-in-canada-and-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m an international student worried about H-1B visa changes. Now, I&#8217;m hunting for tech jobs in Canada and abroad."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68d2d482f9db348adc0c00c3?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Yuran Zhang\"\/><figcaption>Yuran Zhang isn&#039;t sure if she&#039;ll be able to stay in the US due to Trump&#039;s H-1B visa fee.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Yuran Zhang<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>On Friday, President Donald Trump announced a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa hires.<\/li>\n<li>One college senior who is in the US on an international student visa is worried about how the rule will affect her career.<\/li>\n<li>Though she would like to stay in the US, she&#039;s now looking for tech roles abroad.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Yuran Zhang, a senior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on a student visa, after President Donald Trump announced a $100,000 fee <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/trump-h1b-visa-executive-order-100k-fee-renewal-2025-9\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><em>on new H-1B visa hires<\/em><\/a><em> at US companies. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump&#039;s changes to the H-1B visa are throwing my postgrad plans up in the air.<\/p>\n<p>After completing the first two years of my undergraduate degree in China, I enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2024 to complete my degree in data and information science on a student visa.<\/p>\n<p>Since my student visa expires next year, my plan was to use my OPT, or Optional Practical Training \u2014 a temporary work authorization for international students \u2014 to stay in the US after graduation. It also has a 24-month extension, and I planned to use that time to enter the H-1B lottery to stay and work in the US.<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;m not sure if that&#039;s possible for me anymore. It&#039;s unclear how the visa changes will play out, but I&#039;m worried that if I get an H-1B and eventually renew it inside the US, I might not be able to leave the country and visit my family in China. I don&#039;t want to risk there being travel restrictions where I wouldn&#039;t be able to see my family for extended periods of time.<\/p>\n<p>The uncertainty surrounding international visas is definitely making me rethink where I want to pursue my data science career. I&#039;ve always regarded the US as an immigrant country, and I thought it would be the most welcoming for students like myself who want to make a career in the US. My goal is still to land a job at an American tech company, but I&#039;m also looking at jobs abroad, including in Canada, if the H-1B visa doesn&#039;t pan out.<\/p>\n<p>Do you have experience with the H-1B visa program? Business Insider wants to hear from you. Please fill out this quick form or email asheffey@businessinsider.com.<\/p>\n<h2>The door is closing for immigrants<\/h2>\n<p>The US is supposed to be the greatest country in the world. It&#039;s big, there are many job opportunities, and competition is fierce. But Trump&#039;s latest H-1B changes mean that the door is closing on those opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>To me, the new visa fee is a sign that immigrants aren&#039;t welcome in the US, and even if I&#039;m able to get a visa and land a job here, I&#039;m not sure if I would be happy if the administration doesn&#039;t want me to be here. Many of my peers are in a similar boat; I have friends studying computer science who wanted to further their careers in the US, but they&#039;re now looking at opportunities in places like Canada and Singapore.<\/p>\n<p>I also knew where Trump stood on immigration, so this wasn&#039;t a total shock, but it seems like his policies are changing every day, which brings a heightened sense of confusion and insecurity. He&#039;s sending a message to the country that only the top-tier talent from other countries should be prioritized.<\/p>\n<p>Amid all the uncertainty, landing a job in the US remains my goal if I&#039;m able to find a job that offers sponsorship. If that doesn&#039;t happen, I&#039;m considering furthering my studies and pursuing a master&#039;s degree, either in the US or in Canada. I would still advise other international students that now&#039;s the time to start looking for opportunities in other countries because we can&#039;t count on job security in the US.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yuran Zhang isn&#039;t sure if she&#039;ll be able to stay in the US due to Trump&#039;s H-1B visa fee. Courtesy of Yuran Zhang On Friday, President Donald Trump announced a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa hires. One college senior who is in the US on an international student visa is worried about how the rule [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}