Featured Image Credit: Bloomberg/Getty
Topics: Donald Trump, Immigration, Melania Trump, Money, Politics, US News, Elon Musk
Jen Thomas
Topics: Donald Trump, Immigration, Melania Trump, Money, Politics, US News, Elon Musk
Donald Trump has confirmed the news that a popular visa will now rocket in price from $1,500 to more than $100,000.
The President has signed an executive order which will enact the enormous price increase for applicants to the H-1B visa programme, and lots of people are horrified.
This will impact skilled foreign workers looking to come to the US. Trump has claimed there has been 'abuse' of the scheme, while critics have argued it undermines the American workforce.
Trump's former ally, Elon Musk, has long been a supporter of the scheme, saying it enables the US to bring in the best of the best from around the world
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Ironically, First Lady Melania Trump also came to the US on a H-1B visa to work as a model, from her home country of Slovenia.
Worse, it turns out that the $100,000 for the H-1B visa will need to be paid yearly for six years, according to the US Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick.
"The company needs to decide... is the person valuable enough to have a $100,000-a-year payment to the government, or they should head home, and they should go hire an American," he said.
He insisted: "All of the big companies are on board."
The order is said to apply from September 21 and will only apply to new applicants.
As it stands, there has been a cap in place on the number of H-1B application at 85,000 a year, since 2004. Last year they received 359,000 applications, which was a four-year low.
Amazon is the biggest user of the scheme, followed by Tata, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google, according to the government.
As well as the $100,000 price tag, Trump has also signed another order which will offer a 'gold card' to anyone with serious money to burn. This 'gold card' promises to fast-track visas to applicants who can cough up the fees, which will start at $1 million.
This isn't Trump's first hit on the H-1B scheme, either.
Early in his first term in 2017, he increased scrutiny on applications to prevent fraud. Rejection levels then rose to 24% in the 2018 fiscal year.
By comparison, rejections were between 5% and 8% under Barack Obama and 2% and 4% under Joe Biden.
However, immigration law experts fear this will be the 'nail in the coffin' for many people seeking to come to the US for work.
Tahmina Watson is a founding attorney at Watson Immigration Law.
She told the BBC: "Almost everyone's going to be priced out."
"This $100,000 as an entry point is going to have a devastating impact," and says it's not as simple as 'hiring an American' as Lutnick suggested.
She said that many companies 'will tell you they actually can't find workers to do the job'.
This is often because they have no choice: "When employers sponsor foreign talent, more often than not, they're doing that because they have not been able to fulfil those positions."
Trump had been debating the H-1B scheme for a while, dividing his supporters.
In January, he told the press he understands 'both sides of the argument' on H-1Bs, and when he was campaigning he had even promised to look into green cards for college graduates.
Speaking on the All-In podcast, Trump said: "You need a pool of people to work for companies."
"You have to be able to recruit these people and keep these people."