Trump signs order adding $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applicants

United States President Donald Trump on Friday signed an order asking companies to pay $100,000 for each H-1B worker visa.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that it was an annual fee.

Trump’s order, which will take effect on September 21, is valid for 12 months.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows companies in the US to temporarily employ foreign workers for special occupations. About 85,000 new H-1B visas are available each year.

It currently costs companies $215 to register for the H-1B visa lottery, besides several filing fees.

The Trump administration’s decision is being viewed as a setback to the technology sector in the US that relies heavily on foreign workers, especially from India and China.

In the past few years, Indians have constituted the majority of H-1B visa holders. Indians comprised 72.3% of all H-1B visas issued by the US in the financial year 2022-’23.

The change in application fee will stop large technology companies from bringing in foreign workers “who will take our jobs”, Lutnick said.

Lutnick said that historically, the employment-based green card programme had let in 281,000 persons per year.

“And those people on average earned $66,000 a year on average…” he said. “So we were taking in the bottom quartile, below the average American, it was illogical.”

A green card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, allows...

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