Under a proclamation U.S. President Donald Trump made Friday, firms will need to pay US$100,000 for every worker they want to bring into the U.S. on a new H-1B visa. Homeland Security can waive the fee. (The Logic)

Talking point: The White House changes sparked another round of chatter about whether Canada can, and will, benefit from tighter U.S. immigration policy. Canadian tech leaders touted open positions at their startups to workers who’d otherwise seek H-1Bs, or urged firms to bring back affected Canadian workers in the U.S. Others warned that U.S. firms would try to hire more Canadians instead, using the TN visa system under the USMCA free trade deal. In a Build Canada memo, Passage CEO Martin Basiri called for a new Canadian program to issue work permits to H-1B holders, and for a system to bring international students from top U.S. universities to Canada. Ottawa did launch a one-off H-1B work permit stream in July 2023, hitting its 10,000-application cap in two days. But not that many skilled workers actually came. Just 1,625 applicants on the new work permit arrived in Canada between August 2023 and December 2024, according to data The Logic obtained from the federal Immigration Department.