A model of the White House and the new ballroom, right, as seen on a table as President Donald Trump meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington on October 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

The White House said that President Donald Trump’s new $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications will apply only to new cases, not to existing holders reentering the United States. The clarification, conveyed to 5WH by a senior administration official, came after the order sparked panic among current H-1B workers worried they would be forced to pay to return.

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News of the proclamation set off a scramble across the Indian H-1B community, with workers rushing to airports in hopes of getting back into the United States before the measure took effect. Immigration lawyers reported a surge of frantic calls from clients fearing they would be locked out or saddled with the hefty new levy, underscoring the uncertainty that followed the announcement.

“Fee ($100,000) is only for new H-1B (applicants). Current H1B will not have to pay to return to the U.S.,” a senior administration official told 5WH. Such an assurance from the Trump Administration may calm immediate anxieties, but leaves broader uncertainty over the future of skilled immigration.

Mr. Trump signed the executive order on Friday (September 19, 2025), arguing the $100,000 annual charge on new H-1B petitions would curb abuses by outsourcing firms that replace U.S. workers with cheaper foreign labour. The order also directs federal agencies to raise prevailing wage levels and prioritise high-skilled, high-paid applicants, part of what the White House described as an effort to “put American workers first”.

Indian nationals, who account for more than 70% of H-1B approvals in recent years, are expected to feel the sharpest impact of the new fee, observers say.

While the exemption eased immediate fears for thousands already in the United States, attorneys noted that future applicants and dependents could face steep costs and closer scrutiny as agencies implement the order.

The White House pointed to large tech and outsourcing firms that laid off thousands of American employees while securing fresh approvals for foreign workers. One company, officials said, received more than 5,000 H-1B slots in fiscal 2025 even as it cut about 15,000 jobs. Another was cleared for nearly 1,700 H-1B workers while laying off 2,400 U.S. staff in Oregon. A third reduced its American workforce by 27,000 since 2022 while obtaining more than 25,000 H-1B approvals over the same period.

Administration officials also cited labour statistics to argue that the program has distorted the U.S. job market. Unemployment among recent computer science graduates stood at 6.1% and 7.5% for computer engineering graduates — more than double the rates for biology or art history majors. Meanwhile, the number of foreign STEM workers in the United States more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, while overall STEM employment grew by only 44.5%.

Announcing the measure, Mr. Trump said the fee would “protect American workers” and ensure only “valuable people” are brought into the country. “We need workers, we need great workers, and this pretty much ensures that’s what’s going to happen,” he told reporters at the White House.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick argued the policy would end the practice of companies training lower-paid foreign workers at Americans’ expense. “No more will these Big Tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers,” Mr. Lutnick said. “Train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our jobs”.

The proclamation requires employers to provide proof of payment before petitions are approved. The Departments of State and Homeland Security will verify compliance and deny entry for non-payment. Limited exemptions may be granted if hiring is deemed in the national interest.

The $100,000 fee applies for the life of a visa, which is three years; companies could pay as much as $200,000 over six years for a single worker. Mr. Lutnick said the policy was designed to force employers to weigh whether a foreign employee was “valuable enough” to justify the expense or whether it made more sense to “go hire an American”.

The order is set to run for 12 months unless extended. It also directs the Department of Labour to initiate rulemaking to revise prevailing wage levels and the Department of Homeland Security to reprioritize admissions toward the “highest-skilled and highest-paid” applicants.

Immigration lawyers warned of confusion as agencies roll out guidance, saying companies will face hard choices between absorbing steep costs or scaling back hiring. Advocacy groups cautioned that the policy could discourage talented graduates from pursuing careers in the United States, while business associations said they feared collateral damage to innovation.

Senior Administration officials said that the levy applies only to new H-1B applications, not to existing visa holders reentering the country. This assurance may calm immediate anxieties but leaves broader uncertainty over the future of skilled immigration.

This article is published in an arrangement with 5WH.

Published – September 20, 2025 10:57 pm IST

U.S. President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island, in Singapore, June 12, 2018.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Donald Trump said in an interview that he would reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who he described as a “smart guy.”

Mr. Trump was being interviewed on Fox News by Sean Hannity, who asked the president if he planned to talk to his North Korean counterpart. Mr. Trump said he would.

“I got along with him,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Kim. “He’s not a religious zealot.”

White House asks California congressional members to hold roundtable during Mr. Trump visit

The White House has asked California congressional members, including Democrats, to hold a roundtable at an airplane hangar in Santa Monica during Mr. Trump’s visit to the fire-ravaged region of California on Friday afternoon.

That’s according to a person briefed on the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them.

Congressional Democrats have sharply criticized the new president’s threats to withhold federal disaster aid unless California’s leaders change the state’s approach on its management of water.

There are currently no plans to visit sites of fire destruction in Altadena, a working class area heavily impacted by the Eaton fire, according to the source familiar, though it was unclear if the president would be visiting other sites.

President Donald Trump delivered a 30-minute speech from the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, his second inaugural address to the American people.

Here is a transcript:

Vice President Vance, Speaker Johnson, Senator Thune, Chief Justice Roberts, justices of the United States Supreme Court, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, President Biden, Vice President Harris and my fellow citizens:

The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation. And we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.

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During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first. Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end. And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud and prosperous and free.

America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before. I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country. Sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.

But first, we must be honest about the challenges we face. While they are plentiful, they will be annihilated by this great momentum that the world is now witnessing and the United States of America. As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, the radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens. While the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair, we now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad.

It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world. We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders, or more importantly, its own people.

Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina, who’ve been treated so badly. And other states who are still suffering from a hurricane that took place many months ago. Or more recently, Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense. They’re raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now. They don’t have a home any longer. That’s interesting.

But we can’t let this happen. Everyone is unable to do anything about it. That’s going to change. We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world. And we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves, in many cases to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. All of this will change starting today and will change very quickly.

Our recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal, and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.

Our liberties and our nation’s glorious destiny will no longer be denied and we will immediately restore the integrity, competency and loyalty of America’s government. Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our Republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.

That is why each day under our administration of American patriots, we will be working to meet every crisis with dignity and power and strength. We will move with purpose and speed to bring back hope, prosperity, safety and peace for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed. For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025, is Liberation Day.

It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country. As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society. Young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban and rural. And, very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states and the popular vote. We won by millions of people.

To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records, and I will not forget it. I’ve heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come.

Today is Martin Luther King Day and his honour — this will be a great honour — but in his honour, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true.

National unity is now returning to America and confidence and pride is soaring like never before. In everything we do my administration will be inspired by a strong pursuit of excellence and unrelenting success. We will not forget our country. We will not forget our Constitution. And we will not forget our God.

Today, I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It’s all about common sense. First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted. And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. We will reinstate my remain in Mexico policy. I will end the practice of catch and release. And I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country. Under the orders I sign today we will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.

As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions. And that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Next, I will direct all members of my cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices. The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices. And that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.

America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth. And we are going to use it. We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world. We will be a rich nation again. And it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.

With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers. In other words, you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice. We will build automobiles in America again at a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago. And thank you to the auto workers of our nation for your inspiring vote of confidence. We did tremendously with their vote.

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I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources.

The American Dream will soon be back and thriving like never before. To restore confidence and effectiveness to our federal government, my administration will establish the brand new Department of Government Efficiency.

After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America. Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents. Something I know something about. We will not allow that to happen. It will not happen again. Under my leadership, we will restore fair, equal and impartial justice under the Constitution and the rule of law. And we are going to bring law and order back to our cities.

This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. This week I will reinstate any service members who were unjustly expelled from the military for objecting to the Covid vaccine mandate with full back pay. And I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty. It’s going to end immediately. Our armed forces will be free to focus on their sole mission—defeating America’s enemies. Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen.

We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end. And, perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be. A peacemaker and a unifier. I’m pleased to say that, as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families.

America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. And we will restore the name of the great President William McKinley to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.

He was a natural businessman and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama after the United States — the United States, I mean, think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made. And Panama’s promise to us has been broken. The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated. American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.

Above all, my message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization. So as we liberate our nation, we will lead it to new heights of victory and success. We will not be deterred. Together, we will end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease free. The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons. And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.

And it’s the lifeblood of a great nation. And, right now, our nation is more ambitious than any other. There’s no nation like our nation. Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. The call of the next great adventure resounds from within our souls. Our American ancestors turned a small group of colonies on the edge of a vast continent into a mighty republic of the most extraordinary citizens on Earth. No one comes close. Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand. If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.

Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken. I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do. In America, the impossible is what we do best. From New York to Los Angeles, from Philadelphia to Phoenix, from Chicago to Miami, from Houston to right here in Washington, D.C., our country was forged and built by the generations of patriots who gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom. They were farmers and soldiers, cowboys and factory workers, steel workers and coal miners, police officers and pioneers who pushed onward, marched forward and let no obstacle defeat their spirit or their pride. Together they laid down the railroads, raised up the skyscrapers, built great highways, won two world wars, defeated fascism and communism, and triumphed over every single challenge that they faced.

After all we have been through together, we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history. With your help, we will restore an American promise and we will rebuild the nation that we love. And we love it so much. We are one people, one family and one glorious nation under God. So to every parent who dreams for their child and every child to dreams for their future: I am with you, I will fight for you and I will win for you. And we’re going to win like never before.

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In recent years, our nation has suffered greatly. But we are going to bring it back and make it great again. Greater than ever before. We will be a nation like no other. Full of compassion, courage and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable.

America will be respected again and admired again, including by people of religion, faith and goodwill. We will be prosperous. We will be proud. We will be strong and we will win like never before. We will not be conquered. We will not be intimidated. We will not be broken. And we will not fail.

From this day on, the United States of America will be a free, sovereign and independent nation. We will stand bravely. We will live proudly. We will dream boldly, and nothing will stand in our way. Because we are Americans. The future is ours. And our golden age has just begun.

Thank you. God bless America. Thank you all. Thank you.