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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is proposing an overhaul of the H-1B visa system to favor more highly skilled and highly paid foreign workers, according to docket submitted Tuesday.
The change would replace a lottery system with a “numerical cap” that allows employers to prioritize higher–skilled workers that make higher wages. Workers would be separated into four different categories, with Level IV workers being entered into the selection pool four times and Level I workers being entered once.
The policy change would, according to DHS, incentivize employers to provide “higher wages or higher skilled positions to H-1B workers.” The current system, the docket says, allows employers to prioritize lower-skilled, lower-wage workers.
The docket will be published to the Federal Register on Wednesday. After that, there will be a 30-day public comment period.
President Trump on Friday signed a proclamation imposing a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, which took effect Sunday and has already rattled some in the tech sector. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified on Saturday that the charge is a one-time fee and H-1B visa holders outside the U.S. will not have to pay the fee to reenter the country.
The H-1B visa program allows employers to hire foreign workers in certain specialty occupations, according to the Department of Labor. The program, created in 1990, is primarily utilized by tech companies to hire workers who are not lawful permanent residents of the U.S.
H-1B visas are valid for three years and can be extended for up to six years, according to the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency. In 2005, Congress capped H-1B approvals at 65,000 per fiscal year, with an additional 20,000 approvals exempted for workers with advanced U.S. degrees.
Certain employers, including colleges and universities, nonprofits and government research institutes are exempt from the cap. If application totals exceed the cap, USCIS uses the aforementioned lottery system.
Nearly 400,000 H-1B applications were approved last year, according to the Pew Research Center, with just less than 65 percent being renewals. The number of applications peaked in 2022, when more than 440,000 applications were approved.
Pew also reported 73 percent of H-1B workers whose applications were approved hailed from India, with another 12 percent originating from China.
“We need workers, we need great workers and this pretty much ensures that that’s going to happen,” Trump said on Friday.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick added that the change will incentivize employers to hire American workers, saying “all of the big companies are on board.”
Last December, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were criticized by some in the Trump base for their support of the H-1B program. The issue has become a flash point for Republicans to signal their stance on immigration.
