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www.desitalk.com – that’s all you need to know - Continued From Page 8 9 SPECIAL REPORT September 26, 2025 Both the H-1B proposal and the new gold and plati- num card visa program are likely to face rapid legal challenges from companies and workers, said David Bier, an analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. Under federal law, he said, only Congress has the power to create new visa entry programs and add fees to existing categories. Lutnick said he expects that the Gold Card program will raise more than $100 billion in revenue and the Plati- num Card program will create $1 trillion. Analysts have said such figures are dubious. They suggested the biggest market for such visas could come from wealthy people in China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, potentially raising national security concerns. The president first announced plans for a $5 million gold card earlier this year, and Lutnick previously said that more than 250,000 people had expressed interest. The Trump administration landed on the $100,000 fee for H-1B visas because it would deter companies from using the program to bring in entry-level employees and incentivize employers to rely on the program strictly to recruit “the great engineers” and “impressively detailed executives,” Lutnick said. Employers rely on H-1B visas to hire foreign workers with specialized skills, usually in science and technol- ogy, when they cannot identify American workers to fill those jobs. Tech companies are the largest beneficiaries of such visas, but employers in manufacturing, finance, education, retail and health care employers also use the program. About 85,000 new H-1B visas are available each year, although Congress exempts universities from that cap. Last year, the government received about 425,000 H-1B visa petitions. Recipients are selected through a lottery. Current H-1B visa application fees depend on em- ployer size and status, but rarely exceed $5,000 in total, excluding lawyer’s expenses. There is a $215 fee to register for the lottery and a $780 fee for an employer sponsor to file a petition for a nonimmigrant worker. Universities and nonprofits pay a lower fee than private employers. Trump’s coalition is divided over H1-B visas, which are important to his allies in the tech industry. Trump’s coalition splintered over the visas during the presidential transition, when far-right activist Laura Loomer sparred on X with Trump’s top tech supporters over the program. Musk, who was one of Trump’s closes allies at the time, aggressively defended the program, but he has since fallen out of favor with Trump. Stephen K. Bannon, a topWhite House adviser in Trump’s first term, has railed against H-1B as a “total scam” and has advo- cated eliminating the program entirely. Trump has ramped up his mass deportation cam- paign while also moving to restrict legal immigration, in particular targeting vulnerable migrants who are fleeing hardship, including wars and natural disasters, in their native countries. More than 70 percent of H-1B visa holders in the 2024 fiscal year were born in India, according to the Depart- ment of Homeland Security. Chinese nationals received 12 percent of new visas. Workers from the Philippines, Canada and South Korea were also among the top recipi- ents. J. Mike Sevilla, an immigration attorney at the firm Dorsey &Whitney said in an emailed note that “a $100,000 fee for H-1B petitions would be devastating to several industries as it would significantly prohibit the hiring of foreign national talent in this visa classification.” Bier said Trump’s new H-1B requirements could ef- fectively undercut the value of hiring them and convince companies to move their operations outside the United States. Depending on how it is structured, “this would effec- tively end the H-1B program,” said Bier, who favors sig- nificantly expanding the cap on H-1B visas or eliminating the cap altogether. “This is further evidence that compa- nies will use to assess their operations in the future.” He pointed to Trump’s decision in June 2020, during his firstWhite House term, to suspend the program, a move that Bier said increased offshoring of jobs. “That’s exactly the opposite of the policy the president says he is pursuing, which is onshoring. It makes no sense,” he said. Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for governmental relations for the American Council on Education, said the changes would be really difficult for colleges and universities, which rely on H-1B workers for faculty positions, especially in high-need STEM fields. “It’s going to cost institutions of higher education and other U.S. businesses a lot more money to bring in skilled talent that we may not otherwise be able to fulfill with the current workforce,” she said,” and I think it’s going to restrict our ability to find the best people for the jobs.” Adam Kovacevich, a former Google executive and the CEO of Chamber of Progress, a left-leaning industry trade council, said that “Trump talks about attracting the world’s best minds, but now he wants to impose a six- figure talent tax.” “We’re not going to win the AI race if we slam the door on top talent,” he added. But Ira Mehlman, media director at the Federation of American Immigration Reform – a restrictionist group that supports a merit-based immigration system in which high-skilled workers have precedence over families – said Trump’s announcements appear to be a step in that direction. Mehlman said the proposed fees to the H-1B program are “significant enough that the employers will consider carefully whether this is somebody they really need.” Leaders of FAIR have previously spoken critically about Trump’s proposed gold card program, saying it amounts to selling citizenship to the highest bidder. Mehlman said the group is seeking more details about Trump’s executive order before rendering a judgment. Amazon was the largest beneficiary of the program in fiscal year 2024, with 3,871 new H-1B employees, accord- ing to data compiled by the nonpartisan organization Na- tional Foundation for American Policy. Other tech giants – Google, Meta, Apple and IBM – rank among the top 10. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns TheWashington Post. Congress created the H-1B program in 1990 to address labor shortages. Critics on both the left and right say the program and lottery allows certain employers to exploit the system and underpay foreign workers to do jobs that American workers could fill. Ron Hira, an associate professor of political science at Howard University who has researched the issue for decades, said that the $100,000 fee as well as higher pay standards could help improve a system that allows Silicon Valley companies to profit off cheaper foreign-born labor. “The idea here is to signal you’re really bringing in somebody super specialized if an employer is willing to pay $100,000,” Hira said. “One of the criticisms is they’re bringing in people with ordinary skills and the reason employers like them is not because they have special skills but because they’re cheaper and they’re indentured to their employer.” -TheWashington Post Trump Unveils $100K Yearly Fee On H-1B Visas In Clampdown On Legal Immigration US H-1B Visa Clarification Eases Uncertainty, India’s IT Industry Body Says T he United States specifying that higher fees for H-1B visa applica- tions will be imposed only on new applications has helped reduce uncertainty, India’s information tech- nology industry body Nasscom said on Monday. Indian and India-centric companies operating in the U.S. have significantly reduced their reliance on H-1B visas, Nasscom said, adding that it expects only a marginal impact for the sector. U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas from Sunday. TheWhite House has clarified that the order applies only to new applicants and not holders of existing visas or those seeking renewals, addressing some of the confusion over who would be affected. The clarification that the fee is a one- time fee and not annual alleviates con- cerns on business continuity, it said. The fee, which is applicable from the next cycle of H-1B applications, which will be in 2026, gives companies time to step up skilling and hire more in the U.S. Companies in India’s $283 billion IT sector, which derives about 57% of rev- enue from the U.S., send workers onshore to work on client projects. Even a one- time fee of $100,000 for new visas is pro- hibitive, analysts and lawyers have said. The number of H-1B workers is a “mere decimal point” of the overall U.S. work- force, Nasscom said. IT companies have been reducing their reliance on H-1B visas. “The industry is spending more than $1 billion on local upskilling and hiring in the U.S., and the number of local hires has increased tremendously,” Nasscom said. -Reuters PHOTO:DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THEWASHINGTON POST Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks as President Donald Trump signs an executive order Friday in the Oval Office.