US President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order that will add a $100,000 (\u00a374,000) fee for applicants to the H-1B visa programme aimed at bringing in skilled workers from abroad into certain industries.<\/p>\n
The proclamation will reportedly mention “abuse” of the programme and will restrict entry unless payment is made. <\/p>\n
Critics of the programme have long argued that H-1Bs undercut the American workforce, while proponents – including billionaire Elon Musk – argue it allows the US to attract top talent from around the world. <\/p>\n
A separate order is expected to order a review of minimum wage requirements for those under the scheme. <\/p>\n
Since 2004, the number of H-1B applications has been capped at 85,000 per year.<\/p>\n
While H-1B fees are subject to change and depend on the size of the employer, they currently include a $215 registration fee and another $780 fee for filing a form known as a I-129, required for larger employers. <\/p>\n
There is also a $500 fraud prevention and detection fee. Companies often spend tens of thousands of dollars each year for the visas.<\/p>\n
Data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, shows that applications for H-1B visas for the 2026 fiscal year that begins on 1 October fell to about 359,000 – a four-year low. <\/p>\n
The greatest beneficiary of the programme the previous fiscal year was Amazon, followed by tech giants Tata, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google, according to government statistics. <\/p>\n
The BBC has contacted these companies for comment. <\/p>\n
The debate over H-1B visas had previously caused splits within Trump’s team and supporters, pitting those in favour against critics such as former strategist Steve Bannon. <\/p>\n
Trump told reporters at the White House in January that he understands “both sides of the argument” on H-1Bs, and since returning to office has on occasion expressed support for the “great” programme, while at the same time mulling further restrictions to it. <\/p>\n
The year before – while seeking to attract support from the tech industry while on the campaign trail – Trump vowed to make the process of attracting talent easier, going as far as to propose green cards for college graduates.<\/p>\n
“You need a pool of people to work for companies,” he told the All-In Podcast. “You have to be able to recruit these people and keep these people.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order that will add a $100,000 (\u00a374,000) fee for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-155608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}