Ex-Meta Employee Celebrates Strike Down of H-1B Visa Fee Hike

An ex-Meta employee is celebrating the strike down of the Trump administration's increased H-1B visa fee. Zach Wilson, a former data engineer at the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company took to X to honour the announcement. He shared that for the past 6 months, when his Indian students asked "How do I get a data engineering job in the US?" his answer would be "You don't because of Trump." He shared that due to the visa fees he had to visit Bangalore and Hyderabad in 2026 to meet with the developers in India. "Because if we can’t bring the brains to America, the brains will continue building amazing things in India. And the phenomenal entrepreneurs and engineers I met in India were incredible. The world is balancing out," he wrote. Wilson also added that it was "amazing" to see that America still has its checks and balances necessary to keep it a land of immigrants and new ideas. "Today is one of the few days in a very long time that I say I’m proud to be an American and that my government is doing something right" he added.

Social media users react

Wilson's post received mixed reactions online. While some agreed with his views, others called him out for supporting Indians. "The quality of engineers coming out of India now is second-rate at best. It would be okay to have one or two low performers on a team, but Indians are extremely racist and bigoted, so they only hire other Indians. Most teams now consist of low performers and one old white guy who solves all the problems. If you are black or Latino, they will eliminate you," claimed a user to whom Wilson replied that he was hired by 3 Indian hiring managers when he worked in big tech. "If they can just build things in India then why don’t they?" asked another to which he replied that India's economy is growing 3-4 times faster than the US economy. "Like all these lame efforts, this is going to get overruled in very short order by a higher court and, in the meantime, these application simply won't be processed. There are no "amazing brains" in the third world and I love that even normies are now waking up to that reality," wrote one. The Trump administration hiked the H-1B visa fees to $100,000 in September 2025. However, on June 8, 2026, a federal judge in Boston struck down the policy ruling that it was an unlawful tax that exceeded the president's authority. "The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress," wrote US District Court Judge Leo Sorokin, siding with the 20 states that have already declined the policy. Previously, Wilson had ignited controversy by claiming that Trump's move would wipe out 80% of the competition in top tech jobs and give American workers their "moment." “When I worked at Meta in 2017, I was on a team of 17 people. Fifteen of the 17 were on H-1B visas,” Wilson wrote. “I was one of two Americans on the team, specifically for core growth data engineering. That's $1.5 million in visa fees under the new rules. ” He added, “If you're an American looking to land a big tech role, now is your time because more than 80% of your competition literally just vanished overnight. Good luck.” However, due to India's growing tech sector and AI boom, it seems he has jumped tracks to invest in the country and its people.