WASHINGTON (AP) — President Trump on Friday signed a proclamation that may require a brand new annual $100,000 payment for H-1B visa purposes, amongst different modifications to this system for extremely expert overseas employees that has come underneath scrutiny by the administration.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick mentioned the payment shall be $100,000 per 12 months and added that “all big companies” are on board.
H-1B visas are supposed to carry one of the best and brightest foreigners for high-skilled jobs that tech firms discover troublesome to fill with certified U.S. residents and everlasting residents.
This system as a substitute has become a pipeline for abroad employees who are sometimes keen to work for as little as $60,000 yearly. That’s far lower than $100,000-plus salaries usually paid to U.S. know-how employees.
Trump on Friday insisted that the tech business wouldn’t oppose the transfer.
“I think they’re going to be very happy,” he mentioned.
Representatives for the most important tech firms, together with Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, didn’t instantly reply to messages for touch upon Friday. Microsoft declined to remark.
“No longer will you put trainees on an H-1B visa,” Lutnick mentioned on a name with reporters. “It’s just not economic anymore. If you’re going to train people, you’re going to train Americans. … If you have a very sophisticated engineer and you want to bring them in … then you can pay $100,000 a year for your H-1B visa.”
Trump on Friday additionally introduced he’ll begin promoting a “gold card” visa with a possible pathway to U.S. citizenship. The “Trump Gold Card” shall be accessible for a processing payment and a $1 million contribution after vetting. For firms, it would price $2 million.
The “Trump Platinum Card,” in the meantime, shall be accessible for a $5 million contribution and can enable foreigners to spend as much as 270 days within the U.S. with out being topic to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. earnings. Trump introduced a $5 million gold card in February to switch an present investor visa — that is now the platinum card. Candidates can enroll now for a waitlist for the platinum card, nevertheless it nonetheless must be accepted by Congress.
The actions seem intent on reshaping the visa system for rich and high-skilled foreigners regardless of near-certain authorized challenges and widespread criticism that Trump goes past presidential authority by sidestepping Congress.
First Woman Melania Trump, the previous Melania Knauss, was granted an H-1B work visa in October 1996 to work as a mannequin. She was born in Slovenia.
The H-1B program was created in 1990 for folks with a bachelor’s diploma or greater in fields the place jobs are deemed arduous to fill, particularly science, know-how, engineering and math. Critics say they permit firms to pay decrease wages with fewer labor protections.
Traditionally, these visas — 85,000 per 12 months — have been doled out via a lottery system. This 12 months, Amazon was by far the highest recipient of H-1B visas with greater than 10,000 awarded, adopted by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the best variety of H-1B employees, in accordance with UCIS.
Critics say H-1B spots usually go to entry-level jobs, moderately than senior positions with distinctive talent necessities. And whereas this system isn’t speculated to undercut U.S. wages or displace U.S. employees, critics say firms pays much less by classifying jobs on the lowest talent ranges, even when the precise employees employed have extra expertise.
In consequence, many U.S. firms discover it cheaper merely to contract out assist desks, programming and different fundamental duties to consulting firms equivalent to Wipro, Infosys, HCL Applied sciences and Tata in India and IBM and Cognizant within the U.S. These consulting firms rent overseas employees, usually from India, and contract them out to U.S. employers wanting to economize.
Doug Rand, who served because the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers through the Biden administration, mentioned this quantities to a “split personality disorder” for this system, with solely about half of the visas every year going to conventional firms that supply long-term employment and might put immigrants on a observe to citizenship. The opposite half go to staffing or consulting corporations — and whereas many are established and well-known firms, others are simply one-person operations that wouldn’t exist with out the H-1B program.
“They’re basically entering the lottery so they can hire people that they then rent out to other larger companies doing actual work,” Rand mentioned. “And so there’s a lot of misbehavior and chicanery in this part of the system.”
In 2024, lottery bids for the visas plunged almost 40%, which authorities mentioned was because of success in opposition to individuals who have been “gaming the system” by submitting a number of, generally doubtful, purposes to unfairly improve possibilities of being chosen.
Main know-how firms that use H-1B visas sought modifications after large will increase in bids left their staff and potential hires with slimmer possibilities of profitable the random lottery. Going through what it acknowledged was probably fraud and abuse, USCIS this 12 months mentioned every worker had just one shot on the lottery, whether or not the individual had one job provide or 50.
Critics welcomed the change however mentioned extra must be completed. The AFL-CIO wrote final 12 months that whereas modifications to the lottery “included some steps in the right direction,” it fell wanting wanted reforms. The labor group desires visas awarded to firms that pay the best wages as a substitute of by random lottery, a change that Trump sought throughout his first time period within the White Home.
