United States President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation requiring a $100,000 application fee for companies seeking to sponsor workers H-1B visas.
Trump signed the proclamation during an event in the Oval Office, while also introducing a separate “gold card” visa for individuals to pay $1 million to expedite their immigration.
Administration officials said the change to the H1-B programme would assure that companies would only sponsor workers with the most rarified skill sets.
“We need great workers, and this pretty much ensures that’s what’s gonna happen,” he said.
However, such a prohibitive fee will likely vastly transform the H-1B system, which was created in 1990 in an effort to boost industries with high-skilled, hard-to-fill jobs, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math.
The visas are reserved for people with bachelor’s degrees or higher and have historically been awarded via a lottery system.
The programme has come under increased scrutiny from the Trump administration amid a wider crackdown on immigration, which Trump has tied to boosting domestic labour.
As part of that campaign, the Trump administration has also sought to introduce more restrictive policies on international students studying in the US, including requiring access to social media accounts and a ban on foreign travellers from several countries.
The administration has previously considered changing the H-1B visa rules to favour higher-paying employers, essentially doing away with the lottery system.
Supporters of the H-1B programme say it brings the best and brightest to work in the US, creating an edge against foreign competitors.
Critics have long charged that companies have abused the programme, using it to pay lower wages and to impose fewer labour protections.
The technology sector would be the hardest hit by any major change.
This year, Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas, with more than 10,000 awarded. The company was followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google.
Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Meanwhile, India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71 percent of approved beneficiaries. China was a distant second at 11.7 percent, according to government data.
The H-1B visas are approved for a period of three to six years.
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