Proclamation of September 19, 2025, Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers, sets out to restrict the entry of H-1B specialty occupation workers unless employers pay a $100,000 fee per petition, with limited national-interest exemptions, for a one-year period ending September 21, 2025. Claiming widespread abuse of the H-1B program by IT outsourcing firms and other employers, the order argues that the program has displaced American workers, suppressed wages, harmed new U.S. graduates, and posed national security risks. It directs federal agencies to enforce the new payment requirement, prevent misuse of other visa categories, and begin rulemaking to raise prevailing wages and prioritize the admission of high-skilled, high-paid foreign workers.
Read the proclamation on whitehouse.gov.
Legal challenges are expected.
In the proclamation, President Trump specifically finds that the entry of H-1B workers "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States because such entry would harm American workers, including by undercutting their wages." He then invokes INA 212(f); 8 USC 1182(f), which gives a President sweeping power to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” whenever he or she finds their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” This is the same provision he has used to bar or restrict entry of nationals from certain countries (e.g., the “travel bans”). See NAFSA's page, Presidential Authority to Suspend Entry of Noncitizens Under INA 212(f)/8 USC 1182(f) for background.
Proclamation Section 3 states that the requirements and restrictions apply "only to aliens who enter or attempt to enter the United States after the effective date of this proclamation," so it would not appear to impact individuals who were already in the United States as of September 19, 2025, but it could impact them if they leave and attempt to reenter the United States after that date.