The White House is confronted to clarify Trump plans to add a $ 100,000 fee to visas for highly qualified workers

President Donald Trump’s latest plan for a major overhaul of the US immigration system has created confusion, leaving the White House rolling to clarify that a new $ 100,000 fee for qualified workers is applied only to new candidates, not current visa owners.

On Friday, Trump has signed a proclamation, which will require a $ 100,000 annual visa fee designed for highly qualified jobs that technology companies find difficult to fill.

“Those who are already holding visas for the H-1B and are currently out of the country right now will not be charged $ 100,000 to re-enter,” said White House press secretary Caroline Levitt in an X, former Twitter publication. “This applies only to new visas, not to renewal, not to the current visa owners.”

The fee goes into force at 12:01 pm ET on Sunday. It is envisaged to expire in a year. But this can be expanded if the government determines that it is in the interest of the United States to preserve it.

The White House in social media publication also seeks to clarify the new rule “does not affect the ability of any current visa holder to travel to/from the US”

According to an immigration lawyer, the White House move threatens to increase the lives of many qualified workers and have a distant impact on American business.

Kathleen Campbell Walker, who is with Dickinson Wright based in El Passo, Texas, said in LinkedIn after the White House move “Inserts Common Chaos into the existing H-1B process with a major day notice.”

On Friday, Trade Secretary Howard Luni told reporters that the fee would be an annual price for companies.

But a White House employee said on Saturday that it was a “one -time fee”. Asked if Luni’s comments create confusion, an employee who is not authorized to comment publicly on the issue and talks about the conditions of anonymity, said the new fee “is not currently being applied to renewal, but this policy is being discussed.”

If the moves survive the legitimate collection, they would ensure staggering price increases. The visa fee for qualified workers will jump from $ 215.

An interested visa plan will break families

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in India said on Saturday that Trump’s plan “was being studied by all interested, including the Indian industry.”

The ministry has warned that “this measure is likely to have humanitarian consequences through the interruption caused to families. The government hopes that these disturbances can be considered appropriately by US authorities.”

More than 70 percent of H-1B visa owners are from India. H-1B visas require the least bachelor’s degree.

Critics say the program undercuts US workers by hiring people from abroad who are often ready to work only $ 60,000 a year. This is well below the salaries of $ 100,000 plus, which are usually paid to workers in technology in the United States.

Trump on Friday insists that the technology industry will not oppose this move until Luni said that “all big companies” are on board.

Representatives of the largest technology companies – including Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta – did not respond immediately to comment messages. Microsoft declined to comment.

“We are concerned about the impact on employees, their families and US employers,” the US Chamber of Commerce said. “We work with the administration and our members to understand the full consequences and the best way forward.”

Lutnick said the change is likely to lead to much fewer visas for the H-1B than an 85,000-year-old cap allows because “it’s just no longer economic.”

“If you are going to train people, you will train the Americans,” Luni said in a conference conversation with reporters. “If you have a very exquisite engineer and want to bring them … Then you can pay $ 100,000 a year for your H-1B visa.”

Trump has also announced that he will start selling a gold card visa with a US citizenship for $ 1 million after checking. For companies, this would cost $ 2 million to sponsor an employee.

“Fan Immigration Restrators Service”

Trump Platinum’s card will be available for $ 5 million and will allow foreigners to spend up to 270 days in the United States without being taxed on US income. Trump announced a $ 5 million gold card in February to replace an existing investor visa-it’s already a platinum card.

Lutnik said that gold and platinum cards will replace employment -based visas that offer pathways to citizenship, including professors, scientists, artists and athletes.

Some H-1B critics that say they are used to replacing US workers applaud this move.

American technology workers, a advocacy group, called it the “next best thing” to completely eliminate visas.

Doug Rand, a senior employee at US civil and immigration services during the Joe Biden administration, said the proposed increase in fees of $ 100,000 was “ridiculous iniquity”.

“This is not a real policy – this is a fan service for immigration restraints,” Rand said. “Trump receives his titles and applies to panic and is not interested in whether this survives the first contact with the courts.”

“The president has no legal authority to tax American visas,” said Michael Clemens, an economist at George Mason University, who studies immigration. “He has the authority to charge reasonable fees for costing costs rather than set a fees of $ 100,000 or $ 100 million or whatever is suitable for his personal … random capricious whims.

“If the president feels that the H-1B visas are harmful, he can work with congressional people to reform the laws that regulate these visas. His choice to legislative through a proclamation undermines our entire immigration management system,” said Clemens, also a senior associate at the Institute of International Economics of Pates.

“Beyond this, it is poisonous to do this without warning, without a public debate, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers and millions of their colleagues and family members in chaos and fear.”

Lutnik said the fees for H-1B and the gold card could be introduced by the President, but the platinum card would need congressional approval.

Visas thrown out of lottery

Historically, the H-1B visas were distributed through a lottery. This year, Amazon was the best recipient of H-1B visas with over 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the largest number of H-1B workers.

Some critics say that H-1B stains often go to jobs, not senior positions with unique skills requirements. They say that while the program should not undermine salaries in the US or displace US workers, companies can pay less by classifying jobs at lowest skills levels, even if employed specific workers have more experience.

As a result, many US companies find it more cheaper to conclude the desks for help, programming and other major tasks of consulting companies such as Wipro, Infosys, HCL Technologies and TATA in India, and IBM and Cognizant in the US, which these consulting companies are often hired by They save money.

Ron Hira, a professor at the Department of Political Science at Howard University and a longtime critic of the H-1B Visas, said the plan was a move in the right direction.

“It’s an acknowledgment that the program is being abused,” he said.

Increasing the visa fee, he said, it was an unusual way to deal with the disadvantages of the H-1B program. Usually, reformers are looking for ways to increase the payment of foreign workers by eliminating the incentive to use them to replace higher-paid Americans, Hira said.

He approved that Trump’s proclamation calls on the US Labor Department to “begin the creation of rules for reviewing the prevailing salary levels” under the visa program.

Those who oppose the H-1B visas also called on the lottery to be replaced by an auction that companies are fighting for the right to attract foreign workers.

Melania Trump received a H-1B visa in the 90’s

Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, former Melania Knaus, received an H-1B working visa in October 1996 to work as a model. She was born in Slovenia.

In 2024, the lottery offers for visas were immersed nearly 40 percent, which the authorities said were due to success against people who “play the system” by submitting many, sometimes dubious, applications for an unjust increase in the chances of being selected.

The main technology companies that use H-1B visas have demanded changes after a mass increase in offers, left their employees and future rentals with a thinner chance of winning the random lottery. Faced with what he admitted was likely to be fraud and abuse, US civil services and immigration services this year said that every employee had only one shot in the lottery, whether the person had one job offer or 50.

Critics welcomed the change, but said more needed to be done. AFL-Cio wrote last year that while changes to the lottery “include some steps in the right direction”, it did not reach the necessary reforms. The labor group wants visas awarded to companies that pay the highest salaries, not a random lottery, a change that Trump wanted during his first term in the White House.