The Trump administration recently revealed plans to significantly change the way H-1B work visas are awarded. These visas, reserved for foreign workers with specialized skills, are often a critical pathway for young international professionals, including journalists, to launch their careers.

Under the current system, most H-1B applicants must go through a lottery conducted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) when the number of applications exceeds the annual cap: 65,000 for general applicants and an additional 20,000 for those with advanced degrees. But according to a recent filing from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now considering replacing the random lottery with a “weighted selection process” based on salary.

This idea echoes a final rule published by the DHS in 2021, in which USCIS proposed to rank and select applicants by wage level, starting with the highest (OES Wage Level IV) and working down to the lowest (Level I). Under this model, applicants offering higher salaries would be prioritized for selection.

It remains unclear how a salary-based selection process would account for disparities across occupations and regions, where prevailing wages can differ dramatically. For example, a Level 1 wage for a junior computer programmer in Silicon Valley is $102,877, significantly higher than the $98,613 salary of a Level 3 journalist, who is expected to have several years of experience. This discrepancy suggests that even highly qualified journalists could be ranked below entry-level peers in other, higher-compensated fields.

And what does a salary-based selection mean for young international journalists, if competition from other occupations is set aside?

Typically, recent international graduates started their careers with a Level I or Level II salary, as indicated on their labor condition applications. To qualify for a Level II Wage, young journalists working in New Jersey, New York, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, where most media job opportunities are concentrated, must earn salaries exceeding $100,000 annually, according to my analysis of U.S. Department of Labor OFLC Wage data. In contrast, journalists in states such as Kansas, Kentucky and West Virginia can meet the Level II threshold with salaries under $30,000.