$100,000 a Year is the Cost for U.S. Visas for Professionals: Panamanians or Others

The US will require an annual payment of $100,000 a year to grant H1-B visas to highly qualified professionals in order to encourage the hiring of Americans in high-value sectors, President Donald Trump revealed on Friday, who also announced a new “gold card” in exchange for a minimum payment of $1 million.  According to the proclamation signed by Trump, the increase in fees that companies pay to hire foreigners with the H-1B visa seeks to “protect American workers” by ensuring that the foreigners hired are highly qualified to prevent them from being replaced by any national.  “The idea is to get big tech companies and other big companies to stop training foreign workers,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during the signing ceremony for the document. 

“They’ll have to pay the employee’s full salary (plus $100,000 a year for the visa).  If they’re going to train someone, let it be a recent graduate from one of our country’s top universities.  Let them train Americans.  Stop bringing in foreigners to take our jobs,” added Lutnick, who asserted that “all major companies are on board” with this new policy.  Trump has previously criticized the H1-B visa, saying it not only discourages the hiring of Americans but also forces a downward cut in base wages.  The H-1B is a nonimmigrant visa that allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations and has been used frequently in recent years by technology companies, such as those controlled by billionaire Elon Musk. 

According to government estimates, about 700,000 people are currently living in the United States on this visa, most of them from India.  Trump, in turn, signed an executive order today to create a new type of program for highly skilled, financially backed foreigners, dubbed a “gold card.”  “This program will create a new visa pathway for foreign nationals with extraordinary abilities who are willing to contribute to the United States by paying $1 million to the U.S. Treasury, or $2 million if a company sponsors the individual,” Lutnick explained. 

This “will allow them to access expedited visa processing as part of this new gold card program,” added the Secretary of Commerce, who stated that until now the US has been receiving immigrants who were professionally “below the American average.” “That’s why we’re going to change it. We’ll only accept people with exceptional skills. Instead of them coming in to take Americans’ jobs, they’ll create businesses and create jobs for Americans.  This program will raise over $100 billion for the U.S. Treasury, money we’ll use to reduce taxes and the public debt,” he concluded.