After $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee, Donald Trump Administration Plans To Scrap Lottery Process: How Will It Work?

(MENAFN- Live Mint) The Donald Trump administration is seeking to overhaul the selection process for the H-1B visa system days after the US President imposed a sweeping $100,000 fee for the visa, mostly used by Indian tech workers.

The proposal, released Tuesday, comes as the latest effort of the Trump administration to change the H-1B visa system fundamentally, in accordance with the President's push to a crackdown on immigrants and favour American workers.

“The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposes to amend its regulations governing the process by which US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) selects H-1B registrations for unique beneficiaries for filing of H-1B petitions (or H-1B petitions for any year in which the registration requirement is suspended),” the DHS said in a notification on Tuesday.

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The DHS in its proposal listed multiple changes in the H-1B visa selection process. They are:

• The DHS is seeking to overhaul the H-1B visa selection process whereby a weighted rule will favour mostly the allocation of H-1B visas to higher skilled and higher paid foreigners. It said that the new process will also help employers to get H-1B visas for workers at all wage levels.
• The lottery system with a limit of 85,000 visas per year stays for now under the new H-1B visa rule. However, there is a change here as well. The DHS would give heavier weight to applications by employers who pay high wages if annual requests for the visas exceed the statutory limit of 85,000. The move aims to better protect Americans from unfair wage competition from foreign workers, the department said.

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• Their odds of selection would be based on the wage level to which they are assigned. Workers in the highest of the four wage levels would be entered into the selection pool four times; those in the lowest tier would be entered only once.
• Donald Trump's $100,000 fee on H-1B visa stays. However, it will not be applicable to current H-1B holders, and will apply to new applicants.

The Trump administration said on Friday it would now have companies to pay $100,000 per year for H-1B visas. Tech giants including Amazon and Meta, spooked by the news, asked their H-1B employees to stay in the US and avoid international travel. It was later clarified that the new H-1B rule applies to new candidates.

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