The $100,000 visa

"Under his latest changes, you can essentially buy your way in. Foreigners (who are vetted) may pay $1 million for a " gold card" that will allow them U.S. residency; companies may pay $2 million for the corporate equivalent, which would allow them the ability to sponsor foreigners. "The main thing is we're going to have great people coming in and they're going to be paying," said the president. "We're going to take that money and we're going to be reducing taxes and we're going to"

"Some number of the roughly 500,000 people currently in the U.S. with H-1Bs-high-skill visas used by tech workers, medical workers, and other professionals working in the fields they received degrees in-would have been dissuaded from coming here had the new system been in place. For companies hiring new talent, this fee will be a huge barrier to sponsoring foreign workers-which appears to be the point."

The H-1B visa program now includes a $100,000 annual fee per applicant, aimed at deterring employers from sponsoring foreign workers. Vetted foreigners may purchase residency via a $1 million 'gold card', and companies may buy a $2 million corporate equivalent to sponsor workers. Officials said revenue will fund tax cuts and debt reduction. The fee forces employers to weigh paying $100,000 per year versus hiring Americans, creating a major barrier to new talent. More than 70% of H-1Bs go to Indian nationals and 12% to Chinese nationals, and about a quarter of U.S. physicians are foreign-born, raising concerns for medical staffing.

Read at Reason.com