Trump renews USD 100,000 fee on H-1B visas, tightens scrutiny

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has extended by a year the USD 100,000 fee on employers for bringing in foreign workers on H-1B visas, the White House said.

In a presidential proclamation issued on Friday, Trump said the 2025 decision to impose a USD 100,000 fee has led to a 92 per cent decrease in H-1B registrations by large IT outsourcing firms.

“An extension of the 2025 Proclamation will continue to protect the economic and national security interests of the United States, improve labour market access for American workers and graduates, and ensure that employers recruit only the most highly-skilled and essential alien workers when needed in line with the original intent of the program,” Trump said.

Indians remain the single largest beneficiary group of the US H-1B visa program.

The 2025 decision to levy the USD 100,000 fee has run into a legal challenge and the matter is before two different federal courts.

The 2025 order for a fee hike was set to expire this month. It did not apply to visas granted to foreign citizens already in the United States on student visas, who make up a large share of new H-1B recipients, or to renewals of current visas.  

The order also sets a 30-day deadline for the Secretary of Labour, acting through the Wage and Hour Division, to begin reviewing data from previously submitted labour condition applications.

The review will determine whether further action against sponsoring employers is warranted.

The President also issued a separate proclamation, tightening the scrutiny of H1-B visa applications through better inter-agency cooperation.

“The Order enhances program integrity in the H-1B visa program by improving interagency coordination and directing enhanced scrutiny of H-1B visa applications where there is a heightened risk that American workers would be laid off,” a fact sheet issued by the White House said. 

The Order directs the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Labour, and the Secretary of Homeland Security to consider petitioner employers’ recent or planned layoffs of similarly situated US workers when considering H-1B visa applications.

The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program was created to identify uniquely skilled and highly specialised foreign temporary workers to strategically supplement the United States economy, the US President said in the executive order.  

“Instead, the program has been widely abused by certain employers, third-party placement groups, and outsourcing firms to undercut and displace the supply of skilled United States labour,” Trump said.