White House calls $100,000 H-1B fee a ‘significant step’ to curb system abuse

The White House has strongly defended the Donald Trump administration’s overhaul of the H-1B visa programme, describing the new $100,000 application fee as an important measure to deter misuse and safeguard American jobs.

In an exclusive statement to IANS, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said President Donald Trump had “done more than any president in modern history to tighten our immigration laws and put American workers first.”

She said the steep fee attached to new H-1B applications was intended to discourage companies from relying on lower-paid foreign workers. “The $100,000 payment required for new H-1B visa applications is a significant first step to stop abuses of the system and ensure American workers are no longer replaced by lower-paid foreign labour,” she noted.

Rogers also pointed to the launch of “Project Firewall,” a Department of Labor enforcement initiative aimed at investigating firms suspected of violating H-1B rules. The programme, she said, is designed to restore oversight and ensure the visa category is used only for “the highest-skilled foreign workers in speciality occupations,” rather than for low-wage roles that could displace Americans.

The White House response comes shortly after President Trump publicly defended the need for the visa programme, despite facing mounting criticism from conservative circles. Speaking to Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham earlier this week, Trump rejected the suggestion that the US should scale back the H-1B programme.

“You do have to bring in talent,” he said, countering Ingraham’s claim that the US already had enough skilled workers. “You don’t have certain talents… you can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘We’re going to make missiles.’”

His remarks triggered sharp reactions from several Republican lawmakers. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene renewed her call to introduce legislation to ban H-1B visas across all sectors except medicine.

In a post on X, she argued that ending the programme would free up jobs and housing for Americans, claiming it would reduce competition from “legally imported labour”.

However, immigration experts have warned that the proposed ban would have severe consequences. Sarah Pierce, Director of Social Policy at the Washington-based think tank Third Way, told IANS that Greene’s proposal would harm Americans rather than help them.

Pierce said that eliminating H-1B visas would jeopardise critical sectors, especially healthcare. “Slashing the flow of foreign workers, including the medical professionals her own communities rely on, would gut access to care overnight,” she said, adding that such a move could lead to “preventable deaths.”

As the debate intensifies within Republican circles, the Trump administration maintains that its reforms strike a balance between protecting American workers and ensuring the US can still attract specialised talent needed for national security, high-tech industries and advanced manufacturing.

With agency inputs