US says $100,000 fee for H-1B visas will not apply to existing holders

As Trump’s bid stirs anxiety, White House clarifies that the interest lone applies to caller applicants and volition beryllium levied per petition.

The United States has issued a clarification to its caller H-1B visa policy, saying that the caller $100,000 interest for skilled workers volition beryllium levied per petition and volition not use to existent visa holders.

The announcement connected Saturday came a time aft US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said it would beryllium paid annually, and would use to radical seeking a caller visa arsenic good arsenic renewals.

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Lutnick’s remark prompted major tech firms, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet, which is Google’s genitor company, to pass employees with H1-B visas to enactment successful the state oregon instrumentality quickly.

White House property caput Karoline Leavitt, however, clarified that the interest volition lone use to caller visas and that the regularisation “does not interaction the quality of immoderate existent visa holder to question to/from the US”.

“This is NOT an yearly fee. It’s a one-time interest that applies lone to the petition,” she wrote.

“Those who already clasp H-1B visas and are presently extracurricular of the state close present volition NOT beryllium charged $100,000 to re-enter… This applies lone to caller visas, not renewals, and not existent visa holders,” she added.

The enforcement bid imposing the caller interest was signed by President Donald Trump connected Friday nighttime and is scheduled to instrumentality effect astatine 12:01am connected (04:01 GMT) Sunday.

It is scheduled to expire aft a year. But it could beryllium extended if the Trump medication determines that is successful the involvement of the US to support it.

H-1B visas let companies to sponsor overseas workers with specialised skills – specified arsenic scientists, engineers and machine programmers – to enactment successful the US, initially for 3 years, but extendable to six.

The visas are wide utilized by the tech manufacture and are doled retired done a lottery system. Indian nationals relationship for astir three-quarters of the permits.

Critics accidental the programme undercuts American workers, luring radical from overseas who are often consenting to enactment for arsenic small arsenic $60,000 annually. That is good beneath the $100,000-plus salaries typically paid to US exertion workers.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said connected Saturday that Trump’s latest program “was being studied by each concerned, including by Indian industry″. The ministry warned that “this measurement is apt to person humanitarian consequences by mode of the disruption caused for families. Government hopes that these disruptions tin beryllium addressed suitably by the US authorities”.

The US Chamber of Commerce besides expressed worry.

“We’re acrophobic astir the interaction connected employees, their families and American employers,” it said successful a statement. “We’re moving with the Administration and our members to recognize the afloat implications and the champion way forward.”

On the fashionable Chinese societal media app Rednote, meanwhile, galore H-1B holders shared stories of rushing backmost to the US — immoderate conscionable hours aft landing overseas – fearing they would beryllium taxable to the caller fee.

Some radical who were already connected planes preparing to permission the state connected Friday de-boarded implicit fears they whitethorn not beryllium allowed to re-enter the US, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Allen Orr, an migration lawyer and migration seat of the National Bar Association, told Al Jazeera that the latest bid has caused “mass confusion”.

Workers who held caller oregon renewed H-1B visas and who were extracurricular the US were told not to come, delaying commencement dates and costing wealth owed to the “cancellation of flights and housing”, Orr said.

The lawyer added that Trump’s bid was sending the incorrect connection to talented workers surviving abroad.

“If it applies to adjacent year, $100,000 for an H-1B idiosyncratic conscionable fundamentally puts it retired of the market, and galore of these jobs volition past conscionable stay overseas,” helium said.

“The American concealed is that we’ve fundamentally taken endowment from astir the satellite and colonised it and made of the United States a benignant of stamp. When we halt letting that endowment into the United States, we’re hurting our brand,” helium added.