Bloomberg reported on the 19th (local time) that the United States plans to raise the fee for the H-1B visa, known as a "professional visa," to $100,000 (about 140 million won), which is 100 times the current level.
According to the report, President Donald Trump is expected to sign as early as that day a proclamation to overhaul the H-1B visa program.
The H-1B visa applies to professional occupations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and the number of annual issuances through a lottery is capped at 85,000. A basic stay of three years is permitted, extensions are possible, and permanent residency can also be applied for.
President Trump believes that issuing H-1B visas takes jobs away from Americans. The logic is that by using H-1B visas, which have a high proportion of Chinese and Indian nationals, corporations bring in foreign workers at low expense, encroaching on American jobs.
In addition, internal White House materials obtained by Bloomberg assessed that the "abuse" of H-1B visas has become a factor discouraging Americans from building careers in STEM fields.
Accordingly, Bloomberg said President Trump plans to instruct the Labor Minister to launch a rulemaking process to revise the prevailing wage levels of the H-1B program.
In particular, judging that the lottery-based operation of H-1B visas has led staffing firms to submit applications in bulk, the administration plans to sharply raise the application fee from about $1,000 now to $100,000.
Regarding the government's latest policy, Bloomberg said, "It is appearing in tandem with a series of fee hikes for work authorization, asylum applications, and humanitarian protections stipulated in the president's tax bill," adding, "The purpose is to secure funding to obtain new detention facilities, hire immigration enforcement agents, and expand construction of the border wall."