Trump Signs Proclamation that Imposes $100K Annual Fee for H-1B Visa Applications

TIME

The Trump Administration said Friday it would charge companies $100,000 per year for H-1B visas, a move that created uncertainty for current visa holders and will likely hamper the ability of American tech companies to hire skilled workers from around the world.

Transcript

00:00One of the most abused visa systems in our current immigration system has been the H-1B non-immigrant visa program.

00:07This is supposed to allow highly skilled laborers who work in fields that Americans don't work in to come into the United States of America.

00:15We need workers. We need great workers. And this pretty much ensures that that's what's going to happen.

00:21I think, Sean, do you agree with that?

00:22Well, they're $100,000 per year. So the whole idea is no more will these big tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers.

00:34They have to pay the government $100,000. Then they have to pay the employee. So it's just not economic.

00:40If 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,

00:48train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our jobs. That's the policy here.

00:54$100,000 a year for H-1B visas. And all of the big companies are on board.

01:01We've spoken to them about the gold card.

01:03They love it. They love it. They really love it. They need it.

01:06H-1Bs are sometimes used by people already in the country legally on other visas or student visas.

01:11Does this apply to them or to renewals? Or does it only apply to people applying for the first time from abroad?

01:17Renewals, first times. The company needs to decide do they want, is that person valuable enough to have $100,000 a year payment to the government

01:30or they should head home and they should go hire an American.

01:35The whole idea, it's annual and it's for total. It can be a total of six years.

01:40So $100,000 a year, so either the person is very valuable to the company and America or they're going to depart

01:48and the company's going to hire an American and that's the point of immigration.

01:54Hire Americans and make sure the people coming in are the top, top people.

01:58Stop the nonsense of letting people just come into this country on these visas that were given away for free.

02:05President, it is crystal clear.

02:08Valuable people only for America. Stop the nonsense.

02:12And remember, the country would rather not have to pay $100,000, but they'd rather, how do you do that?

02:23You hire an American. So there's an incentive to hire an American.

02:26But there may be instances where it's better off doing it through expertise or whatever it may be.

02:31But they're both unbelievable, whether it's a gold card or anything else that we talked about today.

02:37Okay.

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