President Donald Trump on Friday announced a new $100,000 annual fee for H-1B visa applications, the latest move designed to curb legal immigration.

The presidential proclamation, signed on Friday, looks to overhaul the program for specialized foreign workers to come to the U.S. The White House argued the program has long been exploited by employers, resulting in the displacement of U.S. workers.

The president also directed the Labor secretary to undergo a rulemaking process to adjust the prevailing-wage levels in the program, an action intended to limit the use of visas that ultimately undercut wages that would otherwise be paid to American workers, according to a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the action.’

“We need workers. We need great workers, and this pretty much ensures that that’s what’s going to happen,” Trump said.
The move is another step in the president’s efforts to prioritize U.S.-born workers, as Trump aides and allies have long argued the H-1B program suppresses wages for Americans and disincentivizes U.S.-born workers from pursuing STEM fields. The Trump administration has said employers use the program to undercut American workers with lower-paid foreign labor, which officials have decried as a national security threat.’

“The whole idea is no more with these big tech companies or other big companies training foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, and then they have to pay the employee,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said beside Trump in the Oval Office. “If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans, stop bringing in people that take our jobs.”

Questions remain about how the administration will quickly implement a system to accept payments, and whether the president’s action is on firm legal ground. The president’s order uses 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to ban the entry of H-1B visa holders in the U.S. who haven’t paid the new fee.

The H-1B visa program was a flashpoint in the beginning of Trump’s term, as MAGA allies in favor of tighter restrictions clashed with Elon Musk and other tech entrepreneurs pushing for more specialty foreign worker visas. Technology companies, which rely heavily on H-1B workers, will be hit the hardest with Trump’s new fees.

“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,” Trump said of the tech companies.

Lutnick told reporters in a later call that the $100,000 figure was reached after consulting with companies.

The fee hike for H-1Bs comes just months after the GOP’s sweeping policy and tax legislation raised fees for asylum applications, work permits and humanitarian protections, part of an effort to curtail the number of undocumented immigrants able to apply for legal pathways. But it was also a way to raise revenue for the administration’s other priorities, including detention expansion, border wall construction and the hiring of 10,000 new ICE agents.