White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified {that a} new $100,000 visa charge ‘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 charge for H-1B visa candidates will apply solely to new visas after an govt proclamation on Sept. 19 prompted confusion for a lot of present H-1B visa holders.
“That is NOT an annual charge. It’s a one time charge 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 presently exterior america gained’t be charged $100,000 to reenter.
The put up sought to assuage a few of the largest considerations that had been expressed following President Donald Trump’s presidential proclamation on Sept. 19.
Trump introduced the six-figure charge for brand spanking 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 supposed to carry employees in on a brief foundation “to carry out additive, high-skilled capabilities” however has been “intentionally exploited to switch, moderately than complement, American employees with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
H-1B visas have drawn growing consideration, notably within the tech and pc science business, by which tech giants akin 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 employees.
A White Home fact sheet on the presidential proclamation states that U.S. firms are “shedding their American expertise employees and seemingly changing them with H-1B employees.”
The actual fact sheet notes that the substantial rise in H-1B employees in tech-based fields, stating that these employees made up 32 p.c of the IT business in 2003, whereas lately, that determine has exceeded 65 p.c.
In line with the White Home, just lately graduated pc science majors face an unemployment price of 6.1 p.c, and pc engineering graduates have an unemployment price of seven.5 p.c—greater than double the unemployment price confronted by current graduates in biology or artwork historical past.
The proclamation will probably face challenges in court docket. If it survives authorized challenges, the proclamation’s phrases would go into impact through the subsequent lottery for H-1B employees.
The charge is a major enhance from the present software charge of $215, and Trump stated it will 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 chief order states that to obtain entry to the method, a person should make “an unrestricted reward to the Division of Commerce,” which is permitted beneath current 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 an organization or related entity.
Trump presented the “gold card” proposal to Congress in his first coverage deal with on March 5.
On the time, he proposed a $5 million charge to obtain such a card.
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