In response to intensified policies related to immigration and employment, some architecture firms are changing their hiring practices. Changes instituted on a federal level during the first year of Trump’s second presidency have thrust the industry into a period of even further unprecedented instability, disrupting long-standing hiring practices and the ways firms recruit, support, and retain foreign-born design talent. Anxieties for non-citizen candidates, many of whom are educated in the U.S., go beyond fee increases in the H-1B system, which was altered when the federal government declared that H-1B petitions filed after September 21, 2025, “must be accompanied by an additional $100,000 payment as a condition of eligibility.” This is similar to the rollout of the Trump Gold Card, in which approved applicants can receive U.S. residency “in record time” for a $15,000 processing fee and a contribution of $1 million.
Additional items further complicate the situation: Mandates governing in-person consular interviews will add time and the possibility of rejections that make hiring or staffing timelines unpredictable; required “prevailing wage” levels for H-1B roles are expected to be revised upward, straining budgets at small and mid-sized firms already pressured by a declining market and reduced profits; and employment authorization renewals will become more complicated. The prospects of even further restrictions have meant the broad discouragement of those requiring sponsorship who hope to contribute to architecture culture in the United States, even as architecture may no longer be classified as a “professional” degree, which would limit borrowing for future architecture students. For context, in 2024 about 9 percent of approved H-1B visas were for architecture and engineering professionals, per a thorough recent article in Oculus.
The Architect’s Newspaper spoke with national and local firms, a career advisor, and early-career international designers to understand how the crisis is reshaping employment in the industry.
Feeling the Tension
Even among large firms, hiring practices have yet to shift uniformly. One national practice with more than a dozen offices stated it has made no proactive changes in response to the proposed H-1B fee increase. A representative told AN: “We have not set aside a dedicated fund to cover a potential fee.” The firm said it will continue to sponsor current employees through the standard H-1B lottery and handle renewals “through our normal processes and timelines.”
However, the spokesperson did stress an understanding of the implications of the stakes that are at hand: “International architects are an essential part of our practice. Their perspectives help us bridge cultural gaps with clients, navigate local customs, and design spaces that feel authentic to the communities they serve.”
Many firms now face a vexing and redundant tension: They value foreign-born talent while operating under policies that make long-term retention increasingly difficult as they look also to brace themselves amid an uncertain economy.
“If the fee is applied broadly, it could limit our ability to keep some staff in the U.S. long term,” the firm added. “Over time, that constraint could narrow our talent pipeline, make it harder to retain highly specialized international designers, and ultimately impact our competitiveness on projects where clients expect deep global expertise and culturally nuanced design.”
An Untenable Situation
At a mid-sized firm with approximately 140 employees that works primarily in the New York region, a much different narrative is emerging about the looming $100,000 fee and its likely constraints.
A senior principal with knowledge of the firm’s hiring practices told AN: “That’s untenable for us, and so it will take us longer to hire. We can’t screen people based on work authorization, that’s illegal. The architecture community here in New York is very multinational, and we hire based on who has the best portfolio. We don’t look at any of that until we need to. And so the fee would mean we’d need to look at that soon, because we won’t be able to handle $100,000. And I think so much about having equitable policies is having transparency and clarity to them, and that’s not possible right now.”
They also noted that the profession is now contending not only with economic uncertainty but with more foundational questions about who will be the architects of tomorrow, which is also bound up efforts to expand diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“There’s so much that’s going to change. I worry a lot just about what happens in architecture schools. Enrollment is already down 15 to 20 percent for the fall at a lot of the local universities. So what does that mean? If schools can’t continue to educate young architects at the quality that the profession needs, then how does that change our role as we receive them?”
So Bleak
Graduated international students looking to stay in the U.S. are entering, as career advisor Erin Pellegrino, cofounder of Out of Architecture, put it, “one of the bleakest entry-level markets we’ve seen in decades.” Stalled junior-level hiring is already an issue, and now the visa question has turned what was once a challenging transition into a situation that “feels completely impossible.” Students sense it too: Their questions “have an edge we haven’t heard before,” Pellegrino said, perhaps shaped by the thought that a degree from a top-tier U.S. institution is no longer a sound investment or that the profession needs fewer junior designers due to AI.
“It’s not that companies don’t want these designers; it’s that the system makes hiring them a liability. Talent is constrained, businesses are constrained, and the space between the two is getting narrower,” Pellegrino said. “We do see this as a blow to the mythology of the ‘American Dream,’ but mostly because it exposes what international designers have known all along: the system was already pretty broken. It has long relied on a precarious workforce whose vulnerability kept labor cheap and choices limited. This new shift doesn’t fix that and, if anything, it tightens the screws.”
A Loss for Architecture Culture
A foreign-born architect who currently works at a boutique firm on an H-1B visa echoed these sentiments. “One expectation I had when I was as a student applying for a job was to find a firm that offers to pay for the H-1B application,” they related. “If that is no longer an option for students, they might end up choosing schools outside the U.S.” Current data shows that the number of international graduate students in the U.S. during the Fall 2025 academic semester dropped by 12 percent.
The architect continued: “Coupled with declining numbers of international students due to the shift in foreign affairs this might trigger further decline due to the uncertain, challenging situation students could face, and result in a more exclusive community in the field with less international presence. It’ll change the whole dynamics of labor in this field here, opposite of cultural diversity, and all the ‘inclusive aspects’ of contemporary discourse in architecture.”
Moving On
One East Coast designer on an O-1 visa said they benefitted from academic experiences that were the result of full scholarships for undergrad and graduate architecture degrees in the U.SI think overall it just kind of goes against the spirit of the U.S. for me,” they said.
“I think that people will shift away from the U.S. as a place to study. The schools will lose a lot of international students, obviously, which is not great for architecture because architecture is already so siloed. We’re losing a lot of perspective,” they predicted before suggesting the quality of domestic architecture could decline as a result.
They also mentioned their situation is complicated even further because architectural media neglects to name junior design team members, which comes into play in reviews where the burden is on the visa holder to prove their work is considered “influential.” As a result, many O-1 holders feel limited to large national firms where the overall impact of the work is more visible.
These changes have life-altering impacts. Late last year, the State Department did not renew the designer’s visa stamp, which allows entry into the country, forcing them to remain abroad in their country of citizenship despite having a valid visa petition through late 2027. The petition is managed by the Department of Homeland Security while the stamp is handled by the State Department, which is confusing, as the entities are in effect disagreeing with each other. The designer described the stamp revocation as a “discretionary and obscure process” with no way to contest the decision from outside the country.
This risk constricts the movement of people who have visas: “Many of my friends who are legally staying in the U.S. and have approved petitions are now hesitating to leave the U.S., because what happened to me could happen to them,” the designer shared.
After a quick search, the designer recently accepted a job in Europe.
Josh Niland is a Connecticut-based writer and editor with work published in Artnet, Architectural Digest, Artforum, Hyperallergic, WHITEHOT magazine, and the Boston Phoenix.
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