MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trump makes H-1B visa not profitable to boost employment of US nationals

“No more bringing in foreigners to take our jobs,” Lutnick warned

US President Donald Trump has upped the H-1B visa fee for employers to US$100,000 annually, effective Sept 21. The measure is intended to boost hiring local workers. “So there is an incentive to hire Americans,” Trump argued.

“The large-scale replacement of American workers through the systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economy and our national security,” the Trump administration noted.

The new fee is a way to ensure that only “highly skilled talent that US workers cannot replace” is brought into the country. The administration argues that the previous H-1B program was being abused, leading to the “large-scale replacement of American workers.”

In addition to the H-1B fee increase, the proclamation also establishes a new “golden card” visa program, offering an expedited visa process to foreign nationals with “extraordinary abilities” who are willing to pay US$1 million to the U.S. Treasury, or have a company pay US$2 million to sponsor them.

Some reports suggest the new policy could negatively impact major tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which rely on the H-1B program, and may even encourage them to move jobs overseas or discourage international talent from studying in the United States.

“The company must decide whether the person is valuable enough to pay US$100,000 a year to the government, or whether it should look at home and hire an American,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained.

“They will have to pay the employee's full salary. It's not profitable. If they're going to train someone, let it be a recent graduate from one of the best universities in our country. Let them train Americans. No more bringing in foreigners to take our jobs,” he added.

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa, which has been used repeatedly in recent years. Some 700,000 people are believed to currently live in the United States on this visa, most of them from India.