Fee one-time, applicable only to new visas in next lottery cycle: White House Press Secy clarifies on H-1B change

India-born professionals are the biggest beneficiaries of these visas. Between October 2022 and September 2023, 72 per cent of the nearly 4 lakh visas issued under the H-1B programme went to Indian nationals. During the same period, top four Indian IT majors with a presence in the US — Infosys, TCS, HCL, and Wipro — obtained approval for around 20,000 employees to work on H-1B visas, as per the latest US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.With September 21 specified as the deadline for this to come into effect, a wave of panic and uncertainty has gripped many. There were reports that H-1B visa holders or their family members currently outside the US for work or vacation are scrambling to return within the next 24 hours or risk being stranded and denied entry.

While Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick underlined Friday that $100,000 was an annual fee for H-1B visas, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Saturday afternoon said it was a “one-time fee” and applied “only to new visas, not renewals, and not current visa holders.”She added: “It will first apply in the next upcoming lottery cycle.”She posted on X that those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside the US will not be charged $100,000 to enter. “H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the US to the same extent as they normally would; whatever ability they have to do that is not impacted by the proclamation,” Leavitt said.

Trump’s move comes weeks after the 25% Russian penalty was slapped on India taking its tariffs to 50% and days before a team from New Delhi is expected to be in the US to push towards a trade deal.

Responding to the decision, New Delhi said Saturday that this measure is likely to have “humanitarian consequences by way of the disruption caused for families” and the Indian government expressed hoped that these disruptions can be “addressed suitably by the US authorities”.

MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that industry in both India and the US has a “stake in innovation and creativity” and can be expected to “consult on the best path forward”.

“Skilled talent mobility and exchanges have contributed enormously to technology development, innovation, economic growth, competitiveness and wealth creation in the United States and India,” the MEA spokesperson said, adding that “policy makers will therefore assess recent steps taking into account mutual benefits, which include strong people-to-people ties between the two countries.”

Justifying its move, the US order claimed there was “deliberate” exploitation of the visa scheme by companies to “replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labour.” This, the order said, had undermined economic and national security and led to a “disadvantageous labour market for American citizens, while at the same time making it more difficult to attract and retain the highest skilled subset of temporary workers, with the largest impact seen in critical science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.”

The number of foreign STEM workers in the US has more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, increasing from 1.2 million to almost 2.5 million, while overall STEM employment has only increased 44.5 percent during that time, the order said.

Among computer and math occupations, the foreign share of the workforce grew from 17.7 percent in 2000 to 26.1 percent in 2019. “The key facilitator for this influx of foreign STEM labour has been the abuse of the H-1B visa,” it said.

The order alleged that Information technology (IT) firms have “prominently manipulated” the H-1B system, significantly harming American workers in computer-related fields. It said that the share of IT workers in the H-1B program grew from 32% in 2003 to an average of over 65% in the last five fiscal years.

In addition, some of the most prolific H-1B employers are now consistently IT outsourcing companies.

“Using these H-1B-reliant IT outsourcing companies provides significant savings for employers: one study of tech workers showed a 36 percent discount for H-1B “entry-level” positions as compared to full-time, traditional workers. To take advantage of artificially low labour costs incentivized by the program, companies close their IT divisions, fire their American staff, and outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers.”

White House staff secretary Will Scharf said the H-1B programme is supposed to allow highly skilled labourers, who work in fields that Americans don’t work in, to come into the US.

The Trump administration said that the $100,000 fee is aimed at ensuring that the people being brought into the country are “actually very highly skilled” and do not replace American workers.

The move is aimed at protecting American workers while ensuring that companies have a pathway to hire “truly extraordinary people” and bring them to the United States.

“We need workers. We need workers. We need great workers, and this pretty much ensures that that’s what’s going to happen,” Trump said, as he signed the proclamation in the Oval Office in the presence of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Lutnick said that, historically, the employment-based Green Card programme let in 281,000 people a year, and those people earned $66,000 a year on average, and were five times more likely to participate in assistance programmes of the government.

“So we were taking in the bottom quartile, below the average American. It was illogical, the only country in the world that was taking in the bottom quartile,” Lutnick said.

“We are going to stop doing that. We’re going to only take extraordinary people at the very top, instead of those trying to take jobs from Americans. They’re going to create businesses and create jobs for Americans. And this programme will raise more than $100 billion for the treasury of the United States,” he added.

The US order said that the abuse of the H-1B program is also a “national security threat”, as it said that domestic law enforcement agencies have identified and investigated H-1B-reliant outsourcing companies for engaging in visa fraud, conspiracy to launder money and other illicit activities to encourage foreign workers to come to the United States.

Trump said that the country will use that amount to cut taxes and pare down debt. “We think it’s going to be very successful,” Trump said.

Trump said that the tech companies “love it. They really love it. They really love it. They need it”. “The main thing is, we’re going to have great people coming in.”

On whether the technology CEOs, who hire foreign workers on H-1B visas, are concerned about the new move, Trump said: “Everyone’s going to be happy. And we’re going to be able to keep people in our country that are going to be very productive people. And in many cases, these companies are going to pay a lot of money for that, and they’re very happy about it.”

Trump also signed an executive order entitled ‘The Gold Card’, aimed at setting up a new visa pathway for foreigners of extraordinary ability who are committed to supporting the United States.

Under the Gold Card programme, individuals who can pay $1 million to the US Treasury, or $2 million if a corporation is sponsoring them, will get access to expedited visa treatment and a path to a Green Card in the country.

When asked if the $100,000-fee will apply to H-1B visa holders already in the country, to renewals or to those applying for the first time from abroad, Lutnick said, “Renewals, first times, the company needs to decide. Is that person valuable enough to have $100,000 a year payment to the government, or they should head home and they should go hire an American. It can be a total of six years, so $100,000 a year. So either the person is very valuable to the company and America, or they’re going to depart and the company is going to hire an American. That’s the point of immigration: hire Americans and make sure the people coming in are the top, top people. Stop the nonsense of letting people just come into this country on these visas that were given away for free. The president is crystal clear. Valuable people only for America. Stop the nonsense.”

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