White House clarifies new $100,000 H-1B visa fee is only on application
發佈日期: 2025-09-21 22:01
TVB News
The White House has been forced to issue a clarification on the new 100,000-U.S.-dollar fee for H-1B visa applications.
President Donald Trump on Friday signed the proclamation in a bid to ensure only the most highly skilled foreigners are recruited by U.S. companies and that more elite jobs are given to Americans.
However, the White House needed to walk back comments by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that it was an annual fee.
Trump's order triggered chaos and confusion among Indian and Chinese employees of U.S. companies who are holding H-1B visas.
Reports say many cut short vacations and trips abroad or were dissuaded from travelling out of the U.S. by their employers for fear of having to pay the 100,000 thousand U.S. dollars, all because of this remark by Howard Lutnick.
"Well they are 100,000 dollars per year," said Rutnick. "So the whole idea is no more will these big tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government 100,000 dollars, then they have to pay the employee. Train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our jobs. That's the policy here, 100,000 dollars a year for H-1B visas and all of the big companies are on board."
Only partially true, the White House said later. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country as they normally would and that the new fee only applies in the next lottery round. It does not apply to current visa holders or renewals.
Previously, the H-1B visas carried administrative fees totalling around 1,500 U.S. dollars, with almost 400,000 applications submitted for 2026. This year, Amazon was by far the top recipient with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Trump said big companies are happy to pay the new fee.
The country would rather not have to pay 100,000 dollars, but they'd rather, how do you do that? You hire Americans. So there's an incentive to hire Americans. Everyone's going to be happy, and we're going to be able to keep people in our country that are going to be very productive people. And in many cases, these companies are going to pay a lot of money for that, and they're very happy about it.
Before Leavitt's clarification, chaos reigned for many Indian and Chinese employees. One flight from San Francisco to Dubai was reportedly delayed by more than three hours after news emerged of Trump's order and several Indian passengers demanded to deplane. Five Indians were allowed to leave.
On the popular Chinese social media app RedNote, people on H-1B visas shared their experiences of having to rush back to the U.S.-- in some cases, just hours after landing in China or another country.
