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The economic case for high-skill immigration is easier to make in the abstract than in a policy environment where specific restrictions are accumulating quickly. At the Immigration Policy and the Economics of Innovation conference on January 22, 2026 — organized through the J-P Conte Initiative on Immigration and hosted by the Hoover Institution at Stanford — researchers and practitioners laid out exactly what the current moment means for the companies and workers who depend on high-skill visa pathways.
Jean-Pierre Conte, the managing partner and Hoover overseer whose philanthropic investment established and funds the initiative, brought together an unusual mix of voices: academic economists with data on visa application trends, founders who had encountered the system firsthand, and legal practitioners who work inside it daily. The result was a picture of a system under strain — and a conversation about what the strain costs.
The Numbers Behind the Restrictions
Several concrete data points emerged from the day’s discussions. A $100,000 fee now applies to new H-1B visa applications under measures enacted this year — a figure that drew concern among conference attendees who work with startups, for whom that sum can consume a meaningful share of early-stage operating capital. Holders of H-1B and other work visas face a tightly constrained window to secure new employment following a layoff, a pressure that has reportedly accelerated departures from the US among workers who decide the uncertainty is not worth managing.
A tech industry recruiter in the audience told conference presenters that a large number of colleagues and former contacts of Indian origin had left the United States in recent months. The majority held advanced degrees. The calculus for many, according to his account, had shifted: the combination of layoff risk, limited re-employment time, and new fee structures was making the US a less reliable destination compared to Canada or Europe.
Jean-Pierre Conte on the Broader Stakes
Jean-Pierre Conte has described his motivation for funding immigration research in economic terms — as a question of what the United States stands to gain or lose depending on how it treats the skilled workers who want to come here. His parents arrived in America with limited resources and considerable ambition; the opportunities available to them shaped the next generation. He views that dynamic as ongoing and fragile rather than guaranteed.
The research presented at the conference supported that view quantitatively. The Brinatti-Guo paper showed that skilled workers diverted from the US by tighter visa rules show up in Canadian immigration filings and eventually in Canadian export data. The implication is that restrictions don’t eliminate the talent — they redirect it. Jean-Pierre Conte established the initiative specifically to document and quantify that process, so that policymakers have more than anecdote to work with when these decisions are made.
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