Washington: President Donald Trump on Friday enacted a proclamation introducing a $100,000 yearly fee for H-1B visa applications, part of broader reforms targeting the program for highly skilled foreign professionals that has faced intense administration scrutiny.
The H-1B visas aim to attract top international talent for specialized roles in areas where U.S. companies struggle to recruit qualified American citizens or permanent residents. However, the initiative has evolved into a channel for importing overseas labor at reduced rates often around $60,000 per year compared to the $100,000-plus compensation commonly afforded to domestic tech professionals.
During the signing, Trump expressed confidence in industry support, stating, “I think they’re going to be very happy.”
Notably, first lady Melania Trump, formerly Melania Knauss, secured an H-1B work visa in October 1996 for modeling work after immigrating from Slovenia.
Established in 1990, the H-1B framework targets individuals holding at least a bachelor’s degree for positions in shortage fields, particularly science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Detractors argue it enables firms to offer subpar wages and diminished worker safeguards.
Annually capped at 85,000 visas, approvals occur via a lottery process. In the latest round, Amazon dominated with more than 10,000 approvals, outpacing Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple, and Google. California hosts the largest concentration of H-1B holders, per U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.
Skeptics contend that many allocations fill junior-level openings rather than demanding senior roles requiring rare expertise. Although designed to avoid eroding American pay scales or sidelining local hires, opponents claim employers exploit it by rating positions at entry-level tiers, regardless of the hires’ advanced backgrounds.
Consequently, numerous U.S. firms opt to outsource routine functions like help desks and coding to offshore consultancies, including India’s Wipro, Infosys, HCL Technologies, and Tata, as well as American outfits like IBM and Cognizant. These entities recruit international staff—predominantly from India—and lease them to cost-conscious domestic clients.
Doug Rand, former USCIS director under the Biden administration, described the setup as a “split personality disorder.” Roughly half the visas support established employers providing stable jobs and pathways to citizenship, he noted, while the remainder fuel staffing agencies. “They’re basically entering the lottery so they can hire people that they then rent out to other larger companies doing actual work,” Rand explained. “And so there’s a lot of misbehavior and chicanery in this part of the system.”
Visa lottery entries dropped nearly 40% in 2024, officials attributed to crackdowns on “gaming the system” through repeated or fraudulent submissions. Leading tech firms, reliant on H-1B for recruitment, pushed for adjustments after surging applications diluted their success rates. In response, USCIS mandated a single-entry rule per candidate, irrespective of offer volume, to curb presumed irregularities.
While reformers praised the tweak, they deemed it insufficient. The AFL-CIO asserted last year that lottery modifications marked “some steps in the right direction” but urged deeper fixes, advocating allocation based on top wage offers over random selection.
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