Washington, Dec. 24 -- The US Department of Homeland Security has finalised a rule replacing the random H-1B visa lottery with a weighted selection process that prioritises higher-paid and higher-skilled foreign workers, a change expected to make it significantly harder for entry-level professionals, particularly from India, to secure American work visas. The final rule, announced on Tuesday and effective February 27, 2026, will govern the allocation of approximately 85,000 H-1B visas annually beginning with the fiscal 2027 registration season. Under the new system, applications for higher-paid workers will receive greater weight in the selection process, while maintaining the opportunity for employers to secure H-1B workers at all wage levels. "The existing random selection process of H-1B registrations was exploited and abused by US employers who were primarily seeking to import foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay American workers," said US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser. "The new weighted selection will better serve Congress' intent for the H-1B programme and strengthen America's competitiveness by incentivising American employers to petition for higher-paid, higher-skilled foreign workers." The change marks a fundamental restructuring of how America allocates work visas to foreign professionals. The government has used a random lottery to select which applications would be processed when demand exceeded the annual cap. The H-1B programme allows US companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that typically require at least a bachelor's degree. The annual allocation includes 65,000 visas for workers with bachelor's degrees and an additional 20,000 reserved for those with advanced degrees from US institutions. Indian nationals account for more than 70% of H-1B visas issued annually, making them the demographic most affected by the policy shift. Critics of the random lottery system, including conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, have argued that the programme was being used to import entry-level workers from India and China in their mid-20s, many paid below-median wages, rather than filling specialised roles requiring unique expertise. "Having a wage-based lottery system would decrease total demand for skilled immigration, particularly affecting aspiring immigrants who are entry-level workers," said Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley-based immigration lawyer who works with Indian professionals on H-1B visas, when the change was first proposed in September. The homeland security department first announced its intention to implement the weighted selection process on September 23, 2025, opening a public comment period on the proposed rule....