New York/Washington, Sep 20 (PTI) Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the second-highest beneficiary with over 5,000 approved H-1B visas in 2025, after Amazon, according to federal data.

According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Amazon had 10,044 workers using H-1B visas as of June, 2025. Coming in at the second spot was TCS with 5,505 H-1B visas approved.

  Other top beneficiaries include Microsoft (5189), Meta (5123), Apple (4202), Google (4181), Deloitte (2353), Infosys (2004), Wipro (1523) and Tech Mahindra Americas (951).

In a move that could significantly impact Indian IT and professional workers in the US, the Trump administration announced a staggering annual fee of USD 100,000 on H-1B visas, a move it said aims to check the “systemic abuse” of the programme.

In July, USCIS had said that it has received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap and the 20,000 H-1B visa US advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year 2026.   US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation ‘Restriction on entry of certain nonimmigrant workers’ " on Friday that will restrict entry into the United States of individuals as nonimmigrants unless their H-1B petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of USD 100,000.

The proclamation said the restriction shall expire, absent extension, 12 months after the effective date of this proclamation of September 21, 2025.

The proclamation said that the number of foreign STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workers in the United States has more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, increasing from 1.2 million to almost 2.5 million, while overall STEM employment has only increased 44.5 per cent during that time.  Among computer and math occupations, the foreign share of the workforce grew from 17.7 per cent in 2000 to 26.1 per cent in 2019. The key facilitator for this influx of foreign STEM labour has been the abuse of the H-1B visa, it said.

The proclamation added that Information technology firms have “prominently manipulated” the H-1B system, significantly harming American workers in computer-related fields.   The share of IT workers in the H-1B programme grew from 32 per cent in Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 to an average of over 65 per cent in the last 5 fiscal years. In addition, some of the most prolific H-1B employers are now consistently IT outsourcing companies.   Using these H 1B-reliant IT outsourcing companies provides significant savings for employers, it said, as it cited a study of tech workers that showed a 36 per cent discount for H-1B “entry-level” positions as compared to full-time, traditional workers.  To take advantage of artificially low labour costs incentivised by the programme, companies close their IT divisions, fire their American staff, and outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers, it said.

The proclamation cited data that said many American tech companies have laid off their qualified and highly skilled American workers and simultaneously hired thousands of H-1B workers.   One software company was approved for over 5,000 H-1B workers in FY 2025; around the same time, it announced a series of layoffs totalling more than 15,000 employees. Another IT firm was approved for nearly 1,700 H-1B workers in FY 2025; it announced it was laying off 2,400 American workers in Oregon in July.  A third company has reduced its workforce by approximately 27,000 American workers since 2022, while being approved for over 25,000 H-1B workers since FY 2022.  A fourth company reportedly eliminated 1,000 jobs in February; it was approved for over 1,100 H-1B workers for FY 2025, the proclamation said. PTI YAS RD RD

H-1B fee requirement restricts entry unless petitions are supplemented by a substantial payment, affecting major tech employers. A presidential proclamation conditions nonimmigrant entry on H-1B petitions being accompanied or supplemented by a substantial annual payment, expiring twelve months after its effective date unless extended. The proclamation cites USCIS data showing major concentrations of H-1B approvals among large technology employers and asserts the fee is aimed at addressing alleged systemic abuse by IT outsourcing firms that rely on H-1B labour, incentivise lower labour costs, and correlate with domestic layoffs.