Trump sells visa fee hikes as job security for foreign students
The article discusses President Donald Trump’s recent executive actions regarding visa policies for foreign students and skilled workers.Trump signed a presidential proclamation increasing the fee for H-1B visa applicants to $100,000 and introduced a “Gold Card” visa program, which allows foreign nationals of exceptional ability to obtain expedited visa processing by paying $1 million personally or $2 million through a company.
Trump framed these reforms as a way to retain talented foreign students who graduate from top U.S. universities but often have to leave the country due to visa restrictions. He emphasized that corporations willing to invest in these individuals would be able to keep them in the U.S., comparing it to signing bonuses in professional sports. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick supported the changes, highlighting that companies must decide if a candidate is worth the higher visa cost or if they should hire American workers.
The article also notes tensions within the Trump management’s immigration policies, such as efforts to restrict visas for Chinese students amidst national security concerns, while simultaneously promoting the intake of skilled immigrants. Additionally,international student enrollment is part of broader discussions with elite colleges over civil rights investigations and campus activism.
Trump reiterated a distinction between cracking down on illegal immigration and reforming legal immigration channels to attract skilled workers. The administration defended the visa fee hikes as measures to prevent program abuse, protect wages, and enhance national security.
The coverage also briefly mentions a related political context: Trump’s comments on government funding amid a potential shutdown, ongoing talks with Democrats, and his responses to other current issues during a press conference.
Trump sells visa fee hikes as job security for foreign students
President Donald Trump portrayed his visa reforms as an opportunity for foreign students to remain in the United States if a company is willing to pay.
Trump on Friday took two executive actions, signing one presidential proclamation that increased the fee for H1-B visa applicants to $100,000 and an executive order creating the Gold Card visa program, through which foreign nationals of “extraordinary ability” can pay $1 million or a company $2 million for “expedited visa treatment.”
“One of the biggest problems we have is that people, they go to the best schools, and they do great, they get great marks, and then they get thrown out of the country, they’re not allowed to stay,” Trump told reporters in the White House‘s Oval Office. “This way, a corporation will be able, sort of like a signing bonus in baseball or football, a corporation will be able to get them to stay in the country, and I think it’s going to be tremendously successful.”
Trump’s efforts to retain foreign students come after the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have tried to prevent Harvard University from enrolling students from overseas.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick joined Trump for the executive action signing and framed the visa changes as recruiting the best and brightest.
“The company needs to decide is that person valuable enough to have $100,000-a-year payment to the government or they should go hire an American,” Lutnick said. “It can be a total of six years, so $100,000 a year.”
Trump’s America First rhetoric has been complicated by his posture on welcoming foreign students, who typically pay the maximum tuition prices and may increasingly represent an important segment on college campuses as the number of U.S. high school graduates is projected to decline.
Trump raised eyebrows last month when he announced he’d accept 600,000 Chinese students as part of a trade deal his administration is trying to strike with China. That pro-immigrant messaging came after the State Department in May said it would “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students studying in America based on purported links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Meanwhile, high levels of international student enrollment have become a pressure point in the Trump administration’s settlement talks with elite colleges to settle civil rights investigations. Columbia University’s deal with the Trump administration this summer calls for the New York college to decrease its international student enrollment. The college was being reprimanded amid allegations of antisemitism on campus and activism led in part by Mahmoud Khalil, a foreign student organizing against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Trump has made a distinction between aggressively deporting immigrants who overstayed their visas or entered the U.S. illegally, while reforming legal ways to bring in skilled immigrants by merit.
“President Trump is imposing higher costs on companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to address the abuse of the program, stop the undercutting of wages, and protect our national security, the White House said in a fact sheet on its reforms.
Trump opened his hourlong signing ceremony, which turned into a press conference, by congratulating House Republicans for passing a continuing resolution to keep the federal government open after Sept. 30. However, the measure failed to pass in the Senate without Democratic support to meet the 60-vote threshold.
“We’ll continue to talk to the Democrats, but I think you could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time,” Trump said as Congress left town Friday without a solution, increasing the prospect of a shutdown on Oct. 1.
The Republican plan passed by the House would continue federal spending levels through Nov. 21, in addition to $88 million in emergency funding for security for lawmakers after the assassination last week of Charlie Kirk.
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During the press conference, Trump was pressed on topics from his telephone call on Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, including regarding the particulars of the pair’s TikTok deal, to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticizing Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr as “mob boss” after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the late-night TV host’s comments concerning Kirk.
“Brendan Carr is an incredible American patriot with courage,” Trump said. “Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegally, and incorrectly, and purposely horribly, doesn’t like to see a person that won the election in a landslide get 97% bad publicity before the election.”
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