Large tech companies have responded to President Donald Trump’s dramatic changes to H-1B visa applications by telling employees with those visas to remain in the United States, according to multiple media reports. The White House announced Friday that Trump had signed a proclamation requiring employers to pay a $100,000 fee [https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/19/trump-hits-h-1b-visas-with-100000-fee-targeting-the-program-that-launched-elon-musk-and-instagram/] for H-1B visa applications. In response, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft reportedly emailed their employees telling those with H-1B visas to stay in the United States and avoid foreign travel for now — and if they’re already traveling, to try to return before the proclamation takes effect at 12:01am Eastern on Sunday. Business Insider published the memos from Amazon and Microsoft [https://www.businessinsider.com/read-memos-sent-big-tech-trump-h-1b-changes-2025-9], while Sources published a similar memo from Google [https://sources.news/p/heres-googles-memo-warning-h-1b-employees]. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment. TechCrunch has also reached out to Amazon and Google. According to government data [https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employer-data-hub], Amazon employees have received the most H-1B visas so far this fiscal year, followed by Tata Consultancy Services, then Microsoft, Meta, and Apple, with Google ranked sixth. Meanwhile, a White House official told Axios [https://www.axios.com/2025/09/20/trump-h-1b-immigration-visas] that the fee will only apply to new applicants, not existing H-1B holders or renewals. And White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X [https://x.com/presssec/status/1969495900478488745] that “H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent as they normally would; whatever ability they have to do that is not impacted by yesterday’s proclamation.” This post has been updated with a quote from Karoline Leavitt.