President Donald Trump has signed an executive order raising the sponsorship fee of H-1B work visas from $5,000 to $100,000 per year for American companies seeking to hire employees from Nigeria and other countries.

Mr Trump signed the proclamation at the White House on Friday, while also unveiling a new separate “gold card” visa, allowing individuals and corporations to pay between $1 million and $2 million, depending on the category, for expedited U.S. permanent residency.

“The main thing is, we’re going to have great people coming in, and they’re going to be paying,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House. “You can prove exceptional value to the United States of America by contributing a million dollars to the United States of America.”

The H-1B visas used to cost between $5,000 and $6,000 per year depending on the company and industry, allowing them to sponsor foreign workers with specialised skills to work in the United States for an initial renewable three-year period while creating a pathway for permanent residency.

However, Mr Trump decided to crackdown on the visa program amid his intensified anti-immigration campaign and claims by the administration that companies took advantage of the scheme to import cheap labours from abroad to the detriment of U.S. citizens.

Defending the decision, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, “If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs.”

Meanwhile, the fee poses a significant threat to many industries, including technology, finance and healthcare relying on the 85,000 work visas created by the H-1B program annually to fill job positions.