WASHINGTON—In the days leading up to his announcement of a new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick summoned to the White House a group of President Trump’s allies from anti-immigration groups to sell them on his idea.
Lutnick, who is personally close to Trump, had for months been working on a different pet project: a “gold card” that would provide a path to citizenship to wealthy foreigners willing to pay $1 million.
That idea had been proving unpopular with anti-immigrant groups typically aligned with the Trump administration, who viewed it as a pay-for-play scheme. Lutnick, according to people familiar with the meeting, told them it would reduce immigration overall and brought up another idea: a new, huge fee for the H-1B visa program, a top target of advocates for stricter immigration laws and a popular tool for tech workers. Several attendees perceived it as a fig leaf to help win their support, those people said.
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The tacked-on proposal ignited a firestorm across corporate America on Friday, when Lutnick, alongside the president, announced it from the Oval Office. Senior officials at companies who depend on the H-1B visa most heavily, including several Silicon Valley tech giants, said they hadn’t been informed of the coming change.
The announcement set off a 24-hour scramble of tech workers trying to return home, lawyers peppering administration officials with clarification questions, and executives trying to figure out how expensive the change would be. The ordeal also laid bare how the administration is trying to overhaul the immigration system without alienating key parts of the president’s coalition.
