White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified {that a} new $100,000 visa payment ‘applies solely to new visas, not renewals [or] present holders.’
The White Home on Sept. 20 clarified {that a} plan to cost a $100,000 payment for H-1B visa candidates will apply solely to new visas after an govt proclamation on Sept. 19 precipitated confusion for a lot of present H-1B visa holders.
“That is NOT an annual payment. It’s a one time payment that applies solely to the petition [for a visa]. … This is applicable solely to new visas, not renewals, and never present holders,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a Sept. 20 post on X.
Leavitt additionally clarified that H-1B holders who’re at present outdoors america received’t be charged $100,000 to reenter.
The submit sought to assuage a number of the largest issues that had been expressed following President Donald Trump’s presidential proclamation on Sept. 19.
Trump introduced the six-figure payment for brand new candidates to the high-skilled labor H-1B visa program. He additionally introduced a proposal for a brand new $1 million “gold card” visa as a pathway to citizenship.
Within the proclamation, Trump wrote that the H-1B program was meant to convey staff in on a brief foundation “to carry out additive, high-skilled capabilities” however has been “intentionally exploited to interchange, slightly than complement, American staff with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
H-1B visas have drawn rising consideration, significantly within the tech and pc science business, through which tech giants similar to Google, Apple, Fb, and others have relied closely on visas. Critics—together with the administration—say the system has been abused to the detriment of American staff.
A White Home fact sheet on the presidential proclamation states that U.S. corporations are “shedding their American know-how staff and seemingly changing them with H-1B staff.”
The very fact sheet notes that the substantial rise in H-1B staff in tech-based fields, stating that these staff made up 32 % of the IT business in 2003, whereas in recent times, that determine has exceeded 65 %.
In response to the White Home, not too long ago graduated pc science majors face an unemployment fee of 6.1 %, and pc engineering graduates have an unemployment fee of seven.5 %—greater than double the unemployment fee confronted by latest graduates in biology or artwork historical past.
The proclamation will doubtless face challenges in courtroom. If it survives authorized challenges, the proclamation’s phrases would go into impact throughout the subsequent lottery for H-1B staff.
The payment is a big enhance from the present utility payment of $215, and Trump mentioned it might return this system to its “additive, high-skilled” focus.
The White Home additionally acknowledged that the proclamation permits for “case-by-case exemptions if within the nationwide curiosity,” on the discretion of the homeland safety secretary.
On Sept. 19, Trump additionally signed an govt order to permit rich foreigners to pay a seven-figure sum in change for entry to an expedited immigration course of.
The manager order states that to obtain entry to the method, a person should make “an unrestricted present to the Division of Commerce,” which is permitted underneath present law.
It units the speed at $1 million for a person petitioning for a visa on their very own behalf or $2 million for a person being sponsored by a company or comparable entity.
Trump presented the “gold card” proposal to Congress in his first coverage tackle on March 5.
On the time, he proposed a $5 million payment to obtain such a card.
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