Washington DC, September 20
US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick lauded the Trump administration's recent overhaul in its visa programmes, announcing that these new visa programmes will ensure foreign workers provide "significant benefit" to the US by ending practices where they "take jobs from hard-working Americans" and exploit the economy without any meaningful contribution.
In a post on X on Friday, moments after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order for a 'Gold Card' visa programme with fees set at USD 1 million for individuals and USD 2 million for businesses, as well as issuing a proclamation imposing a USD 100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications, Lutnick outlined the shift from what he called the "open-border Democrats' disastrous agenda" of the past four years, which he accused of flooding the country with illegal immigrants at the expense of US citizens.
"For the past four years, open-border Democrats endlessly flooded the country with illegal aliens at the expense of hard-working Americans. The Trump administration is completely reversing course on that disastrous agenda. These programs guarantee that recipients who come to work in America must provide significant benefit to our great country. We are ending workers taking jobs away from hard-working Americans and taking advantage of our economy and providing nothing in return. The Trump Card begins to restore our immigration system to its intended purpose: significantly benefitting America," Lutnick wrote in his post.
The post follows Trump's executive order signed on Friday (local time), establishing the 'Gold Card' visa programme, which offers foreigners a fast track to residency and citizenship for fees of USD 1 million for individuals and USD 2 million for businesses.
"We think it's going to be very successful... It's going to raise billions of dollars, which will reduce taxes, pay off debt, and do other good things," Trump said as he signed the executive order.
Lutnick noted that through the gold card plan, the US will only allow "extraordinary people at the very top" to come to the US who can create business and jobs for Americans.
Lutnick called the employment-based green card programme "illogical," noting that under this program, the country was taking in individuals from the "bottom quartile" who earned only USD 66,000 a year.
"We are going to stop doing that. We're going to only take extraordinary people at the very top, instead of those trying to take jobs from Americans. They're going to create businesses and create jobs for Americans. And this programme will raise more than USD 100 billion for the Treasury of the United States of America," he said.
Complementing this, Trump issued a proclamation imposing a USD 100,000 annual fee on H-1B visa applications for skilled foreign workers, payable by employers.
The action aims to curb the overuse of the programme, allowing companies to bring in only "highly skilled" workers from other countries. The Trump administration believes that this move will create and protect jobs for US workers.
The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa which allows US-based companies to hire and employ foreign workers for speciality jobs like science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and IT (High skills and at least a bachelor's degree).
- ANI
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