Trump To Slap H1-B Visas With $100,000 Fee; Infosys, Cognizant Plunge

Bad news for alien worker visa farms such as Infosys and Cognizant.

President Trump is expected to sign an order as soon as Friday that would extensively overhaul the H-1B visa program, requiring a $100,000 fee for applications in a bid to curb overuse, Bloomberg reported citing a White House official familiar with the matter.

Trump is set to sign a proclamation Friday, requiring the payment and asserting that abuse of the H-1B pathway has displaced US workers. The proclamation restricts entry under the H-1B program unless accompanied by the payment, which of course will make it so prohibitively expensive to hire foreign workers that only a handful such applications will be made.

Think of it as a tariff on foreign labor.

There's more: Trump will also order the Labor Secretary to undertake a rulemaking process to revise prevailing-wage levels for the H-1B program, a move intended to limit the use of visas to undercut wages that would otherwise be paid to American workers.

The move is the latest immigration reform by the Trump administration and will heavily affect the technology industry in particular, as it relies heavily on H-1Bs. The administration argues that the revisions will bring more certainty to legitimate filings under the program by weeding out abuses.

A fact sheet published by the White House and set seen by Bloomberg News, claims that workers are being replaced with lower-paid foreign labor and called it a national security threat. The dynamic is suppressing wages and disincentivizing Americans from choosing careers in STEM fields, the White House said.