US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order introducing a $100,000 annual fee for skilled foreign workers applying for the H-1B visa.
The order cites misuse of the program and states that applicants will not be allowed to enter without paying this fee.
Trump also introduced a "gold card" to speed up visas for some immigrants in exchange for fees starting at £1 million.
"The company needs to decide... is the person valuable enough to have a $100,000-a-year payment to the government, or they should head home, and they should go hire an American," he said, as per BBC adding, "All of the big companies are on board."
Starting September 21, the new rule will effect only new H-1B visa applications but companies will have to pay $100,000 per applicant each year for six years.
Since 2004, only 85,000 H-1B visas have been available each year.
Previously, applicants paid administrative fees of about $1500 and this year's applications dropped to 359,000, the lowest in four years.
Some people believe H-1B visas harm American workers while other like Elon Musk say they help the US attract skilled talent.
In 2017, early in his first term, Trump signed an order to closely review H-1B visa applications to detect fraud.
As a result, visa rejections jumped to a record 24% in 2017, much higher than the 5-8% under Barrack Obama and 2-4% under Joe Biden.