WASHINGTON, DC (Kashmir English): President Donald Trump has signed a Proclamation imposing new limits on the H-1B visa program, which is meant to stem what the administration characterizes as rampant misuse that hurts American workers and poses dangers to national security.
Starting today, the Proclamation requires H-1B visa petitions for new petitions to be accompanied or supplemented by a $100,000 payment.
The limitation is on non-immigrant employees who want to come into the United States for specialty occupations, except as exempted on a case-by-case basis if found to be in the national interest.
The Secretary of Homeland Security has been instructed to deny approval of petitions from outside the US that are not accompanied by the requisite payment.
Other Requirements for H-1B Visa
Employers are required to keep payment records, and the Departments of State and Homeland Security must perform verification of remittance and refuse entry to those persons involved in unpaid petitions.
The Departments of Labor and Homeland Security are also directed to provide joint guidance on verification, enforcement, audits, and penalties for noncompliance.
The action is one of a larger effort to make high-skilled, high-wage workers a priority under the H-1B program. The Department of Labor will be instructed to update prevailing wage levels, and Homeland Security will be directed to rulemaking to provide preference to more highly paid H-1B applicants.
Administration officials contend that the H-1B program has increasingly replaced American workers, especially in the tech industry, where the percentage of H-1B visa holders in IT occupations has risen from 32% in 2003 to more than 65% in recent years.
They point to high rates of unemployment among recent American computer science and engineering graduates, and to specific instances of big corporations receiving approvals for thousands of H-1B visas while simultaneously laying off American workers.
One firm allegedly received more than 5,000 H-1B approvals in FY 2025 after firing 16,000 American workers. Another was given nearly 1,700 approvals after firing 2,400 U.S. employees in Oregon. Other firms have fired tens of thousands of U.S. employees after acquiring tens of thousands of H-1B approvals in recent years.
US IT employees have even been forced to train their foreign replacements under nondisclosure agreements, adding fuel to the criticism of the program.
The administration contends that the practices are deterring US students from entering STEM fields, diminishing the US talent pipeline, and jeopardizing national security in the long term.
President Trump said that all of these new steps are aimed at preserving American jobs, increasing wages, and creating fairness in the U.S. immigration and labor system.
