The US President Donald Trump-led administration has reportedly moved to codify a more than $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, releasing a proposed regulation for the same.
A federal judge had, in June, ruled that the fee was illegal and blocked the Trump administration from charging the amount. Meanwhile, the US President’s temporary proclamation imposing the fee expires in September, a year after it was issued. The proposed fee of $103,265 fee by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been posted online in the Federal Register on Monday to be formally published on Tuesday, will kick-off a 30-day public comment period. 399,402 H-1B petitions, covering both initial and continuing employment, were approved in fiscal year 2024, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). A Boston appeals court too on Friday last week rejected a bid by US President Trump to halt a judge’s order preventing it from imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas. The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put on hold a lower court judge’s June 8 order striking down the fee on the basis that it constituted an unlawful tax Congress never authorized. The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years.
This rule could be formalised by the end of this year, according to Reuters. Global immigration services firm Fragomen had, last week, said the US DHS had begun the process of proposing new regulations which could, if implemented, impose new fees on H-1B and OPT programmes.
