The Trump administration moved Friday to restrict access to the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program, which universities make use of, as do many other industries including technology and finance, The New York Times reported.

New applicants will have to pay $100,000 in order to qualify for an H-1B visa, starting with the February 2026 lottery. The change took effect Sunday but is likely to face legal challenges. The presidential proclamation directs the Department of Homeland Security to “restrict decisions on petitions not accompanied by a $100,000 payment.” The White House clarified over the weekend that the change doesn’t apply to current H-1B visa holders, Politico reported.

In the proclamation, Trump officials argued that the H-1B program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.” This has led to “a disadvantageous labor market for American citizens.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Friday in the Oval Office that the goal was to “make sure the people coming in are the top, top people,” according to the Times.

He also said, per Politico, that the aim was to encourage big tech companies to hire Americans.

“The whole idea is no more with these big tech companies or other big companies training foreign workers,” Lutnick said. “If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans, stop bringing in people that take our jobs.”

Democrats in Congress and others argued that the change would make it difficult to recruit highly skilled foreign students and workers to this country. 

The H-1B program is capped at 85,000 new visas a year, but colleges and universities and some other organizations aren’t subject to that cap.

Brendan Cantwell, a professor of higher, adult and lifelong education at Michigan State University, wrote in his Substack newsletter that “U.S. higher ed is chock-full of H-1B workers” and that institutions would struggle to operate without international talent. He expects that many colleges won’t be able to afford the $100,000 fee.

“Faculty, researchers, including some but not all postdocs, and staff are often initially hired into U.S. higher education using H-1B visas,” he said. “Many, if not most, of these people eventually become permanent residents or U.S. citizens, but for a period of years are reliant on the H-1B system to live and work in the U.S. Simply put, without access to H-1B workers, U.S. colleges and universities will not be able to fill vital roles on campus, especially in science and engineering fields.”