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Trump signs proclamation to raise H-1B visa fee to $100,000 per year
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the fee will be $100,000 per year, adding that "all big companies" are on board with the new plan.
US President Donald Trump on Friday signed a proclamation restricting the entry of H-1B visa holders and raising the application fee to a whopping $100,000, a move that could significantly impact Indian employees.
H-1B visas are meant to bring foreigners for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill with qualified American citizens and permanent residents. Now, companies who apply to bring in workers from other countries on this visa will have to fulfill the $100,000 per visa payment annually.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the fee will be $100,000 per year, adding that "all big companies" are on board with the new plan. He said that in some cases, companies are going to pay a lot of money for H-1B visas.
Read the full proclamation here.
Meanwhile, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf emphasised that the proclamation will ensure that companies bring very high-skilled workers to the US, those who are not replaceable by American employees.
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"One of the most abused visa systems is the H1-B non-immigrant visa programme. This is supposed to allow highly skilled labourers who work in fields that Americans don't work in to come into the United States of America. What this proclamation will do is raise the fee that companies pay to sponsor H-1B applicants to $100,000. This will ensure that the people they're bringing in are actually very highly skilled and that they're not replaceable by American workers," he said.
Lutnick further said that the idea is that no more will big tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. "They have to pay the government $100,000, then they have to pay the employee. So it's just not economic. If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land, train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our jobs. That's the policy here. All of the big companies are on board," he added.
Since taking office in January, Trump has taken several different measures in his immigration crackdown, including his decision to limit some forms of legal immigration.
The move to raise the H-1B visa fee is by far the most high-profile effort of the Trump administration to revamp the temporary employment visa system.
