{"id":209544,"date":"2025-10-08T17:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T17:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/209544\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T17:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T17:00:20","slug":"rural-schools-face-hiring-challenges-as-h-1b-visa-fees-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/209544\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural schools face hiring challenges as H-1B visa fees increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) \u2014 When Rob Coverdale started his job in 2023 as superintendent of the K-12 Crow Creek Tribal School in South Dakota, there were 15 unfilled teaching positions.<\/p>\n

Within nine months, he had filled those vacancies with Filipino teachers, the majority of whom arrived on the H-1B, a visa for skilled workers in specialty occupations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve hired the H-1B teachers because we quite simply didn\u2019t have other applicants for those positions,\u201d Coverdale said. \u201cSo they\u2019re certainly not taking jobs from Americans. They\u2019re filling jobs that otherwise just simply we would not get filled.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now a new $100,000 fee<\/a> for H-1B visa applications spells trouble for those like Coverdale in rural parts of the country who rely on immigrants to fill vacancies in skilled professions like education and health care. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration announced the fee on Sept. 19, arguing that employers were replacing<\/a> American workers with cheaper talent from overseas. Since then, the White House has said the fee won\u2019t apply<\/a> to existing visa holders and offered a form to request exemptions from the charge.<\/p>\n

H-1Bs are primarily associated with tech workers from India. Big tech companies are the biggest user of the visa, and nearly three-quarters of those approved are from India. But there are critical workers, like teachers and doctors, who fall outside that category. <\/p>\n

Over the last decade, the U.S. has faced a shortage in those and other sectors. One in eight public school positions are vacant or filled by uncertified teachers, and the American Medical Association projects a shortage<\/a> of 87,000 physicians in the next decade. The shortages are often worse in small, rural communities that struggle to fill jobs due to lower wages and often lack basic necessities like shopping and home rental options. <\/p>\n

H-1B and J-1 visas provide communities an option to hire immigrants with advanced training and certification. The J-1s are short-term visas for cultural exchange programs that aren\u2019t subject to the new fee but, unlike the H-1B, don\u2019t offer a pathway to permanent residency.<\/p>\n

While large companies<\/a> may be able to absorb the new fee, that\u2019s not an option for most rural communities, said Melissa Sadorf, executive director of the National Rural Education Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is potentially the cost of the salary and benefits of one teacher, maybe even two, depending on the state,\u201d she said. \u201cAttaching that price tag to a single hire, it just simply puts that position out of reach for rural budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

A coalition of health care providers, religious groups and educators filed a lawsuit<\/a> on Friday to stop the H-1B fee, saying it would harm hospitals, churches, schools and industries that rely on the visa. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment and referred a query to its website.<\/p>\n

Filling classrooms where Americans won\u2019t go<\/p>\n

Coverdale said spots like Stephan, where Crow Creek is based, struggle to attract workers in part because of their isolation. Stephan is nearly an hour\u2019s drive from the nearest Walmart or any place that sells clothes, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more remote you are, the more challenging it is for your staff members to get to your school and serve your kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Among Coverdale\u2019s hires is Mary Joy Ponce-Torres, who had 24 years of teaching experience in the Philippines and now teaches history at Crow Creek. It was a cultural adjustment, but Ponce-Torres said she\u2019s made friends and Stephan is now a second home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came from a private school,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I came here, I saw it was more like a rural area … but maybe I was also looking for the same vibe, the same atmosphere where I can just take my time, take things in a much slower pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many immigrants like Ponce-Torres leave their family behind to pursue the experience and higher wages that a U.S. job can provide.<\/p>\n

Sean Rickert, superintendent of the Pima Unified School District in Pima, Arizona, said he would stop seeking H-1B teachers if the new fee is imposed. \u201cI just plain don\u2019t have the money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Though schools can also use J-1 visas to bring in immigrant teachers, it increases turnover because it is shorter term.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so important that we find permanent people, people who can buy homes, who can become part of our community,\u201d said George Shipley, superintendent at Bison Schools in the town of Bison, South Dakota. \u201cSo the H-1B opens that possibility. It is super important, in my opinion, to actually transition from the J-1 visas to the H-1B.\u201d <\/p>\n

Without enough staff, schools may hire uncertified teachers, combine classes, increase caseloads for special education managers or drop some course offerings. Shipley said any future shortage of teachers in Bison would force some classes to move online.<\/p>\n

The rural reliance on immigrant teachers is concentrated on harder-to-fill specialties, Sadorf said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot more difficult to find a high school advanced math teacher that\u2019s qualified than it is to fill a second or third grade elementary class position,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Closing gaps in the nation\u2019s doctor shortage<\/p>\n

The fee could be a \u201chuge problem\u201d for health care, said Bobby Mukkamala, president of the American Medical Association and a doctor in Flint, Michigan. Without enough doctors, patients will have to drive farther and wait longer for care.<\/p>\n

One-quarter of the nation\u2019s physicians are international medical graduates, according to the AMA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be terrible for the physician shortage, particularly in rural areas,\u201d said Mukkamala, whose parents came to the U.S. as international medical graduates. \u201cThe people that do graduate from here, who want to practice medicine, obviously have a choice and they\u2019re going to pick Detroit, they\u2019re going to pick Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. … This is kind of where everybody goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading medical societies have called on the Trump administration and lawmakers to grant exemptions from the fee to immigrant health care workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the staffing and financial challenges our hospitals are already facing, the increased petition fees outlined in the September 19 Proclamation would likely prevent many of them from continuing to recruit essential health care staff and could force a reduction in the services they are able to provide,\u201d the American Hospital Association said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Allison Roberts, vice president of human resources at Prairie Lakes Healthcare System in Watertown, South Dakota, said the change could be dire for health care in rural America.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we end up not being exempt, the variation between what it is now and that $100,000 fee is going to really take your smaller, rural health care institutions out of the picture,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) \u2014 When Rob Coverdale started his job in 2023 as superintendent of the K-12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[119959,23,103703,1017,3830,96749,28,33357,12,526,793,119957,97,2601,790,2344,1931,1929,119956,119958,1303,3,3766,12802,1307,14489,74,795,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,965],"class_list":["post-209544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-allison-roberts","tag-america","tag-american-medical-association","tag-arizona","tag-az-state-wire","tag-bobby-mukkamala","tag-business","tag-compensation-and-benefits","tag-donald-trump","tag-education","tag-general-news","tag-george-shipley","tag-health","tag-health-care-industry","tag-immigration","tag-india","tag-jobs-and-careers","tag-labor","tag-mary-joy-ponce-torres","tag-melissa-sadorf","tag-michigan","tag-news","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-sd-state-wire","tag-south-dakota","tag-teaching","tag-technology","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}