Trump is trying to limit the brain drain in the US

Thus, on September 20, it became known that Trump signed an executive order introducing a mandatory annual fee of $100,000 for each H-1B visa issued. Companies that hire foreigners holding such visas must pay this fee.

The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant work visa designed to bring highly skilled workers to the United States in industries where there is a shortage of skilled workers. This includes IT, engineering, finance, medicine, science, and education. A U.S. company that wants to hire an H-1B foreign national must pay him or her a salary that is at least the industry average.

The H-1B visa is a key mechanism for attracting foreign IT professionals and scientists to the U.S. It is widely used by companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Apple.

In his executive order, Trump points to "abuse" of the H-1B visa program.

"The company needs to decide... whether this person is valuable enough to pay the government $100,000 a year for, or whether they should go home and they should hire an American. All the big companies support this idea," US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik commented on the decree.

There was a fee for hiring workers with an H-1B visa before, but only about $1,500. According to US immigration authorities, 359,000 applications for this visa were filed for the next fiscal year, which, even without Trump's new decree, was the lowest in the last four years.

Lawyer Tamina Watson, founder of Watson Immigration Law, told the BBC that Trump's order could be "the final nail in the coffin" for small businesses and startups that have been hiring foreign workers under this visa program. She stressed that companies are hiring foreigners precisely because they have been unable to find workers among the locals.

Jorge Lopez, an immigration expert at Littler Mendelson PC, said the new $100,000 fee could "undermine US competitiveness in the technology sector." In particular, it could push technology companies to relocate to other countries.