Sioux Falls, SD – SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — When Rob Coverdale started his job in 2023 as superintendent of K-12 Crow Creek Tribal School in South Dakota, there were 15 teaching positions open.
Within nine months, he had filled those vacancies with Filipino teachers, most of whom arrived on an H-1B visa, a visa for skilled workers in specialized trades.
“We hired H-1B teachers because we simply had no other applicants for these positions,” Coverdale said. “So they’re certainly not taking jobs from Americans. They’re taking jobs that we wouldn’t otherwise have.”
Now new $100,000 fee H-1B visa applications pose a problem for those like Coverdale in rural areas of the country who rely on immigrants to fill vacancies in skilled professions such as education and health care.
The Trump administration announced the fees on September 19, arguing that employers were replacing American workers with cheap talent from abroad. The White House has since announced the fees will not apply for existing visa holders and offered a fee waiver request form.
H-1Bs are mainly associated with technology workers from India. Big tech companies are the largest users of the visa, and nearly three-quarters of those approved are from India. But there are critical workers, such as teachers and doctors, who fall outside this category.
Over the past decade, the United States has faced shortages in these sectors and others. One in eight public school positions are vacant or filled by uncertified teachers, and the American Medical Association plans to loss 87,000 doctors in the next decade The shortage is often worst in small, rural communities that struggle to fill jobs because of low wages and often lack basic necessities like shopping options and home rentals.
H-1B and J-1 visas provide communities with the option to hire immigrants with advanced training and certification. J-1 visas are short-term visas for cultural exchange programs that are not subject to the new fees, but, unlike the H-1B, they do not provide a path to permanent residency.
while Large companies “The United States may not be able to absorb the new fees, and that is not an option for most rural communities,” said Melissa Sadorf, executive director of the National Rural Education Association.
“It’s actually the cost of the salary and benefits of one teacher, and maybe even two, depending on the state,” she said. “By tying that price to one employee, it simply puts that position out of reach of rural budgets.”
A coalition of health care providers, faith groups, and educators presented A lawsuit on Friday to halt H-1B fees, saying they would hurt hospitals, churches, schools and industries that rely on the visa. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment and referred the inquiry to its website.
Places like Stephen, where Crow Creek is located, struggle to attract workers in part because of its isolation, Coverdale said. Stefan is about an hour’s drive from the nearest Walmart or anywhere that sells clothes, he said.
“The further away you are, the more difficult it is for your staff to get to your school and serve your children,” he said.
Coverdale’s appointees include Mary Joy Ponce Torres, who has had 24 years of teaching experience in the Philippines and now teaches history at Crow Creek. It’s been a cultural adjustment, but Ponce Torres said she’s made friends and Stefan now has a second home.
“I came from a private school,” she said. “When I came here, I saw it as more of a rural area… but maybe I was also looking for the same vibe, the same atmosphere where I could spend my time, and take things at a much slower pace.”
Many immigrants like Ponce Torres leave their families behind to seek the experience and higher wages that a job in the United States can provide.
Shawn Rickert, superintendent of the Pima Unified School District in Pima, Arizona, said he would stop looking for H-1B teachers if the new fees were imposed. “I simply don’t have the money,” he said.
Although schools can also use J-1 visas to bring in immigrant teachers, they increase staff turnover because they are shorter in duration.
“It’s very important that we find permanent people, people who can buy homes, who can become part of our community,” said George Shipley, superintendent of Payson Schools in Payson Township, South Dakota. “So the H-1B visa opens up that possibility. And it’s very important, in my opinion, to actually move from J-1 visas to an H-1B visa.”
Without adequate staffing, schools may hire uncertified teachers, consolidate classes, increase caseloads for special education directors or drop some courses. Any future teacher shortages in Payson will force some classes to move online, Shipley said.
Sadorf said that rural dependence on immigrant teachers is concentrated in specializations that are difficult to fill.
“Finding a qualified high school advanced math teacher is much more difficult than finding a position as a second or third grader in elementary school,” she said.
The fees could pose a “huge problem” for health care, said Bobby Mukamala, president of the American Medical Association and a physician in Flint, Michigan. Without enough doctors, patients will have to drive farther and wait longer for care.
A quarter of the country’s doctors are international medical graduates, according to the AMA.
“It would be terrible for the doctor shortage, especially in rural areas,” said Mukamala, whose parents came to the United States as international medical graduates. “Obviously people who graduate from here, who want to practice medicine, have a choice and they’ll choose Detroit, they’ll choose Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. … That’s kind of where everyone goes.”
Leading medical associations have called on the Trump administration and lawmakers to grant fee waivers for immigrant health care workers.
“Given the staffing and financial challenges our hospitals are already facing, the increased solicitation fees described in the September 19 announcement will likely prevent many of them from continuing to hire essential healthcare staff and may result in reductions in the services they are able to provide,” the American Hospital Association said in a statement.
Allison Roberts, vice president of human resources at Prairie Lakes Health Care System in Watertown, South Dakota, said the change could be dire for health care in rural America.
“If we end up not being exempt, the disparity between where it is now and that $100,000 fee is going to take smaller rural health care organizations out of the picture,” she said.