President Donald Trump on Friday introduced changes to America’s visa system for foreign workers and investors. He announced steep new fees for H-1B applications and unveiled an investor program branded the “Trump Gold Card.”
Under the plan, companies seeking an H-1B visa will be charged $100,000 annually, a cost that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said major employers support. “All big companies” are on board, he told reporters. Trump also said the tech industry would not oppose the hike. “I think they’re going to be very happy,” he remarked.
The administration also rolled out a $1 million “gold card” visa that could open a pathway to U.S. citizenship, with a higher-tier “Trump Platinum Card” priced at $5 million. That option, still requiring congressional approval, would allow holders to spend up to 270 days a year in the United States without paying U.S. taxes on overseas income. For corporate applicants, the price tag is $2 million.
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Critics argue the measures stretch presidential authority by bypassing Congress, and legal challenges are all but certain. If they survive in court, the new requirements would dramatically increase the cost of visas first created by lawmakers in 1990.
H-1B visas were originally intended to bring in highly skilled workers in areas where U.S. employers struggled to hire locally, especially in science and technology. Over time, however, the program has been criticized as a tool for companies to cut labor costs, with some jobs paying foreign workers far less than the salaries typically offered to American employees.
“So no longer will you put trainees on an H-1B visa,” Lutnick said, according to AP. “That it’s just not economic anymore. If you’re going to train people, you’re going to train Americans. … If you have a very sophisticated engineer and you want to bring them in … then you can pay $100,000 a year for your H-1B visa.”
The debate over H-1Bs is not new. Historically capped at 85,000 per year, visas are distributed through a lottery that has long attracted both Fortune 500 firms and staffing agencies. Amazon received more than 10,000 last year, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. California remains home to the largest concentration of H-1B workers.
But critics contend too many slots go to entry-level jobs instead of unique roles requiring advanced expertise. Consulting firms, particularly in India, have used the system to recruit workers who are then contracted out to U.S. companies. Doug Rand, a former U.S. immigration official, described this as a “split personality disorder” within the program, with half of the visas supporting long-term employment and the other half fueling a marketplace of outsourcing firms.
“They’re basically entering the lottery so they can hire people that they then rent out to other larger companies doing actual work,” Rand said. “And so there’s a lot of misbehavior and chicanery in this part of the system.”
The Biden administration attempted to tighten oversight, cracking down on multiple applications that boosted lottery odds for some workers. In 2024, entries fell by nearly 40% after the government limited applicants to one chance per person. Labor groups, however, argued further reforms were needed. The AFL-CIO has called for visas to be allocated based on the highest wages offered, rather than random selection, a change Trump previously pursued during his first term.
Trump’s announcement also drew attention to the personal history of First Lady Melania Trump, who entered the U.S. on an H-1B visa in 1996 to work as a model before becoming a citizen.
