The war refugee from Ukraine was elated when the University of Maryland, College Park, agreed to sponsor her H-1B visa to continue her research on global hunger. But this week the Trump administration’s new immigration policy sent her fortunes into reverse.

The University of Maryland is the third-largest user in the state of such visas for college-educated foreign faculty and researchers, with more than 2,600 total H-1B applications approved since the 2015 fiscal year. From readily available data, it was unclear how many more workers from other countries hold the three-year-long visa to do jobs ranging from epidemiologist to business professor.

“I am terrified,” said Alex, the refugee whom the Banner is identifying only by her first name over safety concerns in her home country. “I have panic attacks now. I can’t believe I’m going to be displaced again.”

The administration’s plan imposes a $100,000 fee starting Sunday for new H-1B visas, a figure that could cost the state’s flagship university at least $13.8 million per year if if it keeps visas at present levels, according to a Banner analysis of Department of Homeland Security visa application data. Before the change, employers usually spent $2,000 to $5,000 per visa

The roughly 20-fold increase to hire skilled foreign workers is just the latest financial blow for colleges after a series of federal and state cuts to grants and programs in higher education.

At the University System of Maryland, the parent of the state’s flagship university, officials this week decried “crippling” state and federal cuts that could lead to layoffs. The state’s largest private university, Johns Hopkins, just extended its hiring freeze, citing financial uncertainty from the Trump administration.

Since fiscal 2015, the University of Maryland and Hopkins have had about 140 new H-1B applications approved per year. The universities are also granted on average about 70 extensions for current visa holders. The visas usually last three years but can be extended.

Both Hopkins and the University of Maryland declined to comment this week about the new policy and Alex’s plight. The White House and Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

The policy change has been confusing for employers because Trump administration officials have offered conflicting guidance as to whether the new fee will apply to existing visas or just new ones.

Karin Rosemblatt, the director of the American Association of University Professors at the University of Maryland, said she was startled by the number of people who reached out to her after the Trump administration announced its visa policy.

“The response about the visas was very immediate,” Rosemblatt said. “There are lots of visa holders on our campus.”

The wildly popular H-1B visa program, created by Congress in 1990, uses a lottery system to cap new visas nationwide at 85,000 a year for private businesses. Employees at universities and other nonprofits, however, are generally exempt from that cap.

Recipients must have at least a bachelor’s degree, though nearly half of them have an advanced degree. According a National Foundation for American Policy analysis, there are roughly 700,000 people with the visas living in the United States.

Since 2020, Hopkins and the University of Maryland, the state’s top colleges, have primarily sought to hire foreign scientists and researchers through the visa program, according to a Banner analysis of Department of Labor data.

At Hopkins and Maryland, most visa holders over the last five years have been medical scientists, biologists and biochemists, with the typical yearly salary just below $70,000.

With an application fee that will now eclipse the annual pay offered for many jobs, H-1B employees will become more difficult for universities to justify hiring despite the vast influence of foreign workers on the advancement of science and other fields, said Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the American Immigration Council.

“This is going to mean that universities are going to bring in fewer talented people,” said Robbins, who worries the new policy will stifle innovation in American academia.

Baltimore City Public Schools will see an impact. The school system began hiring foreign-born educators from Kenya and the Philippines to reduce its teacher shortage. Now, according to Sherry Christian, the media and public relations manager at city schools, it is “financially impossible” to continue the program.

While some employers are monitoring the situation to plot their next moves, some of those on the front lines like Alex are packing up. She had been in the U.S. legally as a refugee, but the visa program was her only lifeline for a longer stay.

“I will be going back to Ukraine since I have no other choice,” she said. “There are rockets flying there every day, so I am very scared.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.