US President signs proclamation imposing 100 thousand dollar annual fee on H-1B visa applications

US President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation that will require a new annual one hundred thousand (100,000) dollar fee for applicants to the H-1B visa programme aiming to reduce foreign workers in the tech industry.
 
Now, companies that apply to bring in workers from other countries on this visa will have to fulfil the 100,000 dollars per visa payment annually.
 
White House staff secretary Will Scharf has said, the proclamation will ensure that the people they are bringing in are actually very highly skilled and that they’re not replaceable by American workers.
 
Additionally, the Trump administration has launched a premium immigration programme targeting wealthy individuals worldwide, offering US permanent residency through expensive “Gold Cards”.
 
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced the initiative yesterday. He described it as a fundamental shift in how America approaches legal immigration by prioritising wealthy applicants who can make substantial financial contributions to the country.
 
Under the Gold Card programme, individual applicants will pay 1 million US dollars for permanent residency, while corporations sponsoring employees will pay 2 million US dollars per person. Gold Card holders will be classified as “privileged permanent residents” with full rights to live and work in the United States permanently, including a pathway to citizenship.
 
A key requirement of the programme is that Gold Card holders must pay taxes on their worldwide income, similar to US citizens. This means applicants will be taxed by the US government regardless of where their income is earned globally.