Washington: The US is planning to impose a USD 1,00,000 fee on visas issued to international students for working in the US after graduation from an American university, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Trump administration move comes after a US court struck down a proposal to levy a USD 1,00,000 fee on H1-B visas.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Homeland Security is mulling the high fee on Optional Practical Training (OPT) visas which are an extension of F-1 visas issued to students.
The OPT programme allows foreign graduates to work for one to three years on their student visas in areas directly related to their studies.
Roughly 4,19,000 foreigners were working on OPT in 2024, the latest year for which data are available.
Tech companies, which conduct most of the recruitments from US universities, opposed the USD 1,00,000 fee on H1-B visas.
A DHS spokeswoman said in a statement: “No policies should be considered final until formally announced. At DHS we are always having conversations about how to use all tools in our arsenal to protect the integrity of our legal immigration system.”
In addition to the H-1B and student visas, officials at the State Department are also weighing attaching a USD 1,00,000 bond on applicants for green cards outside the US, redeemable only after they move to the US and become citizens.
The OPT program is one of the primary attractions for international students choosing to study in the US.
Without OPT, most international students would be forced to leave the US immediately after graduation, taking the skills they gained at American universities to foreign markets.
