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The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would replace the lottery programme used to grant H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers with a system that prioritises higher-paid individuals.
The Department of Homeland Security said it would begin to implement a “weighted” selection process to give an advantage to higher-skilled and higher-paid applicants from February, according to a statement posted on its website.
“The existing random selection process of H-1B registrations was exploited and abused by US employers who were primarily seeking to import foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay American workers,” said US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser.
The move is the latest in a broad crackdown on US immigration by President Donald Trump, who has dramatically stepped up deportations of immigrants and sent enforcement agents into cities across the country to carry out arrests.
The change also follows moves earlier this year to curb the number of applicants for the H-1B visa, which is popular among technology and professional services companies, including charging an additional $100,000 fee.
The six-figure application fee is a significant increase from the US government’s previous charges to secure the visa, which included $215 to register for its lottery and an additional $780 for employers that sponsor visa applicants. The fee is being challenged in court.
Additionally, the Trump administration last week imposed expanded social media screening rules for applicants.
Trump has separately made it easier for wealthy individuals to resettle in the US by offering a $1mn “gold card” visa.
In its statement, the DHS said it capped the number of H-1B visas issued annually to 65,000, with an additional 20,000 for US advanced degree holders.
Fwd.us, an immigration reform lobby group, estimates that there are about 730,000 H-1B visa holders in the US along with 550,000 dependants.
“The current random selection process has often been criticised for allowing unscrupulous employers to exploit it by flooding the selection pool with lower-skilled foreign workers paid at low wages, to the detriment of the American workforce,” the statement said.
Republican lawmakers have previously called for H-1B visas to be allocated based on ranked salary rather than at random, as is the case with the current lottery.
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