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Late last week, President Trump and his administration announced steps to address the serious flaws in our nation’s H-1B visa program. As of September 21, 2025, a new, one-time $100,000 fee will be required to petition to bring in a foreign H-1B visa worker. Previously, this fee ranged from as little as $2,000 to $5,000. The order also raises the prevailing wage scale of H-1B visa workers and directs DHS to prioritize the selection of high-paid and high-skilled positions.
This is certainly a step in the right direction and will make it more expensive for companies to replace American workers with cheap foreign labor. It would also help reduce the number of relatively low-skilled and low-wage H-1B visa applications being approved. However, many critics of the H-1B program have been frustrated by the way this new fee was announced and then walked back, granting cutouts for certain industries.
Initially, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated from the Oval Office that the $100,000 fee would be on an annual basis and apply to all H-1B visas (instead of just new H-1B visa requests), which would significantly change the calculus around American companies weighing whether to hire American workers or turn to foreign workers. Instead, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had to later clarify that this would be a one-time fee and only apply to visa applications after September 21st.
Later, it was announced that H-1B visas in the medical industry would be exempted from the $100,000 fee, and many believe that the administration could exempt other industries in response to pushback.
For too long, corporations have exploited loopholes in programs like H-1B to flood the American workforce with cheaper foreign labor—not because they couldn’t find qualified Americans, but because they didn’t want to pay American wages. The victims of this practice have been our own college graduates and skilled workers, who see their job opportunities vanish and wages depressed while multinational corporations rake in the profits. With the latest reports showing more unemployed individuals than actual job openings, this move on the part of the Trump administration could not have come at a better time.
Even though this act is a step in the right direction, our position at Texans for Strong Borders is clear: the H-1B visa program should be eliminated entirely. American jobs belong to American workers first.
This reform is only the beginning. Texans for Strong Borders will continue to fight against corporate greed, open-border lobbying, and the politicians who put foreign workers ahead of American citizens. Together, we can ensure that immigration policy works for Americans, not against them.