WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Indian government expressed concern Saturday about President Donald Trump's latest push to upend American immigration policy, dramatically raising the fee for visas that bring tech workers from India and other countries to the United States.
The president on Friday signed a proclamation that will require a $100,000 annual fee for H-1B visas -- meant for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find hard to fill. He also rolled out a $1 million "gold card" visa for wealthy individuals, moves that face near-certain legal challenges amid widespread criticism he is sidestepping Congress.
If the moves survive legal muster, they will deliver staggering price increases. The visa fee for skilled workers would jump from $215.
India's Ministry of External Affairs said Saturday that Trump's plan "was being studied by all concerned, including by Indian industry.? The ministry warned that "this measure is likely to have humanitarian consequences by way of the disruption caused for families. Government hopes that these disruptions can be addressed suitably by the U.S. authorities.?
H-1B visas, which require at least a bachelor's degree, are meant for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill. Critics say the program undercuts American workers, luring people from overseas who are often willing to work for as little as $60,000 annually. That is well below the $100,000-plus salaries typically paid to U.S. technology workers.
Trump on Friday insisted that the tech industry would not oppose the move. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said "all big companies" are on board.
Representatives for the biggest tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, did not immediately respond to messages for comment. Microsoft declined to comment.
Lutnick said the change will likely result in far fewer H-1B visas than the 85,000 annual cap allows because "it's just not economic anymore."
"If you're going to train people, you're going to train Americans," Lutnick said on a conference call with reporters. "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."
Trump also announced he will start selling a "gold card" visa with a path to U.S. citizenship for $1 million after vetting. For companies, it will cost $2 million to sponsor an employee.
The "Trump Platinum Card" will be available for $5 million and allow foreigners to spend up to 270 days in the U.S. without being subject to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. income. Trump announced a $5 million gold card in February to replace an existing investor visa -- this is now the platinum card.
Lutnick said the gold and platinum cards would replace employment-based visas that offer paths to citizenship, including for professors, scientists, artists and athletes.
Critics of H-1Bs visas who say they are used to replace American workers applauded the move. U.S. Tech Workers, an advocacy group, called it "the next best thing" to abolishing the visas altogether.
Doug Rand, a senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Biden administration, said the proposed fee increase was "ludicrously lawless."
"This isn't real policy -- it's fan service for immigration restrictionists," Rand said. "Trump gets his headlines, and inflicts a jolt of panic, and doesn't care whether this survives first contact with the courts."
Lutnick said the H-1B fees and gold card could be introduced by the president but the platinum card needs congressional approval.
Historically, H-1B visas have been doled out through lottery. This year, Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers.
Critics say H-1B spots often go to entry-level jobs, rather than senior positions with unique skill requirements. And while the program isn't supposed to undercut U.S. wages or displace U.S. workers, critics say companies can pay less by classifying jobs at the lowest skill levels, even if the specific workers hired have more experience.
As a result, many U.S. companies find it cheaper to contract out help desks, programming and other basic tasks to consulting companies such as Wipro, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Tata in India and IBM and Cognizant in the U.S. These consulting companies hire foreign workers, often from India, and contract them out to U.S. employers looking to save money.
Ron Hira, a professor in the political science department at Howard University and a longtime critic of H-1B visas, said the plan was a move in the right direction.
"It's a recognition that the program is abused,'' he said.
Raising the visa fee, he said, was an unusual way to address the H-1B program's shortcomings. Normally, he said, reformers seek ways to raise the pay of the foreign workers, eliminating the incentive to use them to replace higher-paid Americans. He noted approvingly that Trump's proclamation calls for the U.S. Labor Department to "initiate a rulemaking to revise the prevailing wage levels'' under the visa program.
Critics of H-1B visas have also called on the lottery to be replaced by an auction in which companies vie for the right to bring in foreign workers.
First lady Melania Trump, the former Melania Knauss, was granted an H-1B work visa in October 1996 to work as a model. She was born in Slovenia.
In 2024, lottery bids for the visas plunged nearly 40%, which authorities said was due to success against people who were "gaming the system" by submitting multiple, sometimes dubious, applications to unfairly increase chances of being selected.
Major technology companies that use H-1B visas sought changes after massive increases in bids left their employees and prospective hires with slimmer chances of winning the random lottery. Facing what it acknowledged was likely fraud and abuse, USCIS this year said each employee had only one shot at the lottery, whether the person had one job offer or 50.
Critics welcomed the change but said more needs to be done. The AFL-CIO wrote last year that while changes to the lottery "included some steps in the right direction," it fell short of needed reforms. The labor group wants visas awarded to companies that pay the highest wages instead of by random lottery, a change that Trump sought during his first term in the White House.
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Ortutay reported from Oakland, Calif. Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.
