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The White House issued a fact sheet defending US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications, saying the move was designed to stop US workers from being replaced with cheaper foreign labour.
The statement said Trump’s proclamation was aimed at curbing “abuses that displace US workers and undermine national security”. It also described the fee as part of a broader effort to ensure that “high-skilled, high-paid” foreign workers are prioritised over those used to cut costs.
The administration’s defence of the policy centred on what it called widespread misuse of the H-1B programme by large companies. The fact sheet cited examples of firms receiving thousands of H-1B approvals while announcing significant layoffs of US workers.
- In one case, a company was approved for 5,189 H-1B workers for fiscal year 2025 while cutting about 16,000 American jobs.
- Another reportedly laid off 2,400 employees in Oregon despite being cleared for nearly 1,700 visas.
- A third company was said to have reduced its workforce by 27,000 since 2022 even as it secured more than 25,000 H-1B approvals.
According to the White House, some US workers have even been “forced to train their foreign replacements under nondisclosure agreements”.
Tech and engineering employment
The fact sheet also mentioned broader trends, noting that the share of IT workers on H-1B visas has risen from 32 per cent in 2003 to more than 65 per cent in recent years. At the same time, unemployment among recent computer science graduates is at 6.1 per cent and 7.5 per cent for computer engineering graduates, figures that the White House said are more than double the rates for biology or art history majors.
The administration argued that these patterns create disincentives for young Americans to pursue careers in science and engineering, posing a “national security threat”.
American workers
“Voters gave President Trump a resounding mandate to put American workers first, and he has worked every day to deliver on that commitment,” the fact sheet said.
It also pointed to Trump’s past use of tariffs to shield manufacturing, his renegotiation of trade deals, and efforts to limit access to workforce programmes for undocumented immigrants as evidence of a consistent strategy.
The administration contrasted current employment figures with those under President Joe Biden, claiming that “since President Trump returned to office, all employment gains have gone to American-born workers–unlike last year…when all employment gains went to foreign-born workers”.
