Trump administration proposes overhauling H-1B visa process for higher-paid workers

After announcing costs of $ 100,000 on H-1B visas on Tuesday, the Trump administration proposed on Tuesday revising the visa lottery selection process to prioritize foreign and more qualified foreign employees.

The proposed policy changes could rekindle the debate on the use of foreign labor by American employers.

This decision comes as President Donald Trump has targeted H-1B visas, a program widely used by major technologies and outsourcing companies to hire foreign workers, announcing on Friday that companies would be required to pay fees of $ 100,000 with new requests submitted after September 21.

The administration targeted Tuesday the allowance of H-1B visa, offering a “weighted selection process” for the moment when the annual request for visas exceeds the limit of 85,000 people set by the congress, which, according to him, occurred each year for more than a decade.

The new process would replace the current lottery system which determines who can request these limited visa points in favor of putting more weight on more qualified and more paid foreign workers, according to a rule of rule which will be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

Under current lottery rules, VISA H-1B visa requests are assigned to chance.

The Trump administration’s proposal would attribute potential employees to four different salary bands, workers in the highest wage category having entered the selection pool and those in the lowest entry in the selection pool once.

The Ministry of Internal Security declared in the proposal that the weighted system would better serve the initial intention of the Visa program and “encourage employers to offer higher wages or higher qualified posts to H-1B workers and disinpipue the existing generalized use of the H-1B program to fill lower or lower positions.”

He said the proposed selection process would always maintain opportunities for employers to hire H-1B workers at “all salary levels”.

‘A strong signal’

The VISA H-1B program allows American employers to temporarily hire foreign workers qualified in “specialized professions” in the health care, technology and finance industries and other areas related to STEMs.

The two new proposed policies send together “a strong management signal that the administration wants to go,” said Xiao Wang, CEO of Boundless Immigration, a company that offers services to the immigration process in the United States

If it is adopted, policies would benefit businesses seeking to keep foreigners with specialized skills that have studied in American universities in the United States, as well as to guarantee H-1B visas “go disproportionately to people deemed more qualified, represented by higher wages and a higher salary,” he said.

Trump said on Friday that changes were necessary in the visa system, saying that it had been designed to call on temporary workers with “additive and highly qualified functions, but he was deliberately exploited to replace, rather than completing, American workers with lower and low qualification work”.

For the last round of H-1B lottery, which closed its recording in March, around 339,000 people applied. Among these, 120,141 applications were selected for the lottery, according to USCIS data.

The proposal faces a 30 -day public commentary period before it was considered by the administration for a final rule, a process that could take months.

If the changes are adopted, companies seeking to hire workers with lower salary from India and China for computer -related jobs seem to be among the most affected. For more than a decade, around 60% of H-1B workers approved each year have occupied computer-related jobs, according to Pew Research.

Start-ups and small businesses that cannot afford to pay their workers in higher wages compared to large technological companies would also be affected, Wang said.

Deedy Das, partner of Menlo Ventures Venture Capital Group, said in an article on social networks that the last proposal would harm many technological companies.

“Overall, it’s really bad for startups, the first employees, helps consultation stores and can be easily admitted,” wrote Das.

Trump’s announcement of new fees of $ 100,000 on H-1B visas addressed a frenzy among the holders of current visas, the companies that employ them and countries around the world while working to understand the edict.

Finally, the White House clarified that it would be unique costs and would only apply to new visa candidates.

Trump said companies should pay the costs for new H-1B visa requests submitted after September 21. This is a sharp increase in current costs, which are generally $ 2,000 to $ 5,000.

Tuesday’s costs and proposal are likely to face disputes in court.

A growing refrain on the left and right say that an excessive statement on the visa by American companies has disadvantaged workers born in the United States. Commerce secretary Howard Lunick described the “Scam” Visa H-1B program, while the left-wing economic policy institute said that some of the most dependent companies in H-1B visas, such as Amazon and Facebook’s parent, Meta, also had important Layoffs.

In the first half of 2025, Amazon received approval from more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Meta received more than 5,000.

The representatives of the two companies did not immediately respond to requests for comments.