WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Friday ordered an annual $100,000 fee be added to H-1B skilled worker visas, creating potentially major repercussions for the tech industry where such permits are prolific.
The new measure, which could likely face legal challenges, was announced alongside the introduction of a $1 million “gold card” residency program that Trump had previewed months earlier.
“The main thing is, we’re going to have great people coming in, and they’re going to be paying,” Trump told reporters as he signed the orders in the Oval Office.
H-1B visas allow companies to sponsor foreign workers with specialized skills --- such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers — to work in the United States, initially for three years, but extendable to six years.
The United States awards 85,000 H-1B visas per year on a lottery system, with India accounting for around three-quarters of the recipients.
Large technology firms rely on Indian workers who either relocate to the United States or come and go between the two countries.
Tech entrepreneurs — including Trump’s former ally Elon Musk — have warned against targeting H-1B visas, saying that the United States does not have enough homegrown talent to fill important tech sector job vacancies.
“All the big companies are on board,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who joined Trump in the Oval Office.
Trump has had the H-1B program in his sights since his first term in office, but faced court challenges to his earlier approach, which targeted the types of jobs that qualify. The current iteration has become the latest move in the major immigration crackdown of his second term.
According to Trump’s order, the fee will be required for those seeking to enter the country beginning Sunday, with the Homeland Security secretary able to exempt individuals, entire companies, or entire industries.
The order expires in a year, though Trump can extend it.
The number of H-1B visa applications has risen sharply in recent years, with a peak in approvals in 2022 under Democratic president Joe Biden.
In contrast, the peak in rejections was recorded in 2018, during Trump’s first term in the White House.
The United States approved approximately 400,000 H-1B visas in 2024, two-thirds of which were renewals.
Trump also signed an order creating a new expedited pathway to US residency for people who pay $1 million, or for corporate sponsors to pay $2 million.
“I think it’s going to be tremendously successful,” Trump added.
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Trump hits H-1B visas, a tech industry favorite, with $100,000 fee
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Trump hits H-1B visas, a tech industry favorite, with $100,000 fee
- H-1B visas allow companies to sponsor foreign workers with specialized skills to work in the US, initially for three years, but extendable to six years
12 Italians convicted for trying to revive Fascist party
ROME: Twelve members of Italy’s fringe group CasaPound have been jailed for seeking to revive the Fascist Party, which ruled from 1922 to 1943 under dictator Benito Mussolini.
It is the first time a law which bans the “reorganization of the dissolved Fascist party,” has been applied to the neo-fascist group, the Repubblica daily said Friday.
The case dates to 2018, when CasaPound members attacked people who attended a protest against Matteo Salvini, head of the anti-immigrant League party and then interior minister.
All defendants were convicted on Wednesday by a court in Bari in southern Italy and given 18 months in jail.
Seven were also sentenced to 12 months for assault.
Elly Schlein, head of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, called on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government to ban the group.
“Now that there’s a ruling that establishes it, the government has no choice but to do what we’ve been asking of it for a long time: dissolve Casapound, dissolve neo-fascist organizations as laid out in the constitution,” she said.
CasaPound, which is based in Rome, takes its name from Ezra Pound, the modernizt American poet who collaborated with Fascist Italy during World War II.
In parliamentary elections in 2013 and 2018, the group won less than one percent of the vote. It subsequently decided not to contest polls.
CasaPound members have been filmed making the Fascist salute in Rome, an action that current Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi condemned in 2024 as “contrary to our democratic culture.”
However, he said at the time that it was complicated to ban such groups, saying the law only allowed for this in very limited circumstances.
Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the MSI, a party founded by supporters of Mussolini after World War II.
However, the prime minister has condemned Fascism and acknowledged Fascist Italy’s complicity in the Holocaust.
It is the first time a law which bans the “reorganization of the dissolved Fascist party,” has been applied to the neo-fascist group, the Repubblica daily said Friday.
The case dates to 2018, when CasaPound members attacked people who attended a protest against Matteo Salvini, head of the anti-immigrant League party and then interior minister.
All defendants were convicted on Wednesday by a court in Bari in southern Italy and given 18 months in jail.
Seven were also sentenced to 12 months for assault.
Elly Schlein, head of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, called on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government to ban the group.
“Now that there’s a ruling that establishes it, the government has no choice but to do what we’ve been asking of it for a long time: dissolve Casapound, dissolve neo-fascist organizations as laid out in the constitution,” she said.
CasaPound, which is based in Rome, takes its name from Ezra Pound, the modernizt American poet who collaborated with Fascist Italy during World War II.
In parliamentary elections in 2013 and 2018, the group won less than one percent of the vote. It subsequently decided not to contest polls.
CasaPound members have been filmed making the Fascist salute in Rome, an action that current Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi condemned in 2024 as “contrary to our democratic culture.”
However, he said at the time that it was complicated to ban such groups, saying the law only allowed for this in very limited circumstances.
Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the MSI, a party founded by supporters of Mussolini after World War II.
However, the prime minister has condemned Fascism and acknowledged Fascist Italy’s complicity in the Holocaust.
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