By suzanne downing 
President Donald Trump signed a proclamation imposing a $100,000 application fee for H-1B worker visas, a policy shift aimed at reducing the use of the program that brings foreign professionals into the American workforce.
The measure applies only to new applicants, the White House said.
“The number of foreign STEM workers in the United States has more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, increasing from 1.2 million to almost 2.5 million, while overall STEM employment has only increased 44.5 percent during that time. Â Among computer and math occupations, the foreign share of the workforce grew from 17.7 percent in 2000 to 26.1 percent in 2019. Â And the key facilitator for this influx of foreign STEM labor has been the abuse of the H-1B visa,” the proclamation says.
The H-1B program, widely used by technology firms and staffing companies, allows US employers to hire foreign workers in specialized fields such as information technology, engineering, and medicine. For many companies, particularly in Silicon Valley and across the technology sector, H-1B workers are considered essential to filling critical roles where domestic applicants are scarce.
“Further, the abuse of the H-1B visa program has made it even more challenging for college graduates trying to find IT jobs, allowing employers to hire foreign workers at a significant discount to American workers.  These effects of abuse of H-1B visas have coincided with increasing challenges in the labor market in which H-1B workers serve.  According to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, among college graduates ages 22 to 27, computer science and computer engineering majors are facing some of the highest unemployment rates in the country at 6.1 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively — more than double the unemployment rates of recent biology and art history graduates.  Recent data reveals that unemployment rates among workers in computer occupations jumped from an average of 1.98 percent in 2019 to 3.02 percent in 2025,” the proclamation says.
The new fee is expected to sharply limit demand for the visas. Currently, companies pay several thousand dollars in fees to apply for each worker under the program.
Critics of the H-1B system say the visas enable companies to undercut wages and bypass qualified American workers. Supporters argue the program addresses labor shortages and keeps the United States competitive in fields where skilled workers are in high demand.
Read the proclamation at this White House link.
Suzanne Downing
So what will happen now is that the work formerly done within our borders by people with H-1Bs, and thereby stimulating the economy, will be done by the same people remotely from overseas. Just as with tariffs, the economic reality is much more complicated and nuanced than is understood by the current Administration.
We are all winning so bigly.