Trump extends the $100,000 H-1B payment as the court fight keeps enforcement on hold
The White House has renewed a high-cost entry restriction for another year and ordered tougher scrutiny of employers tied to layoffs. But a federal court order still blocks the payment policy, leaving companies and skilled workers inside a fast-moving collision of presidential power, agency rulemaking and immigration law.
The White House renewed the 2025 H-1B payment restriction through Sept. 21, 2027.
A June ruling vacated implementation; the First Circuit refused to stay that order in July.
A new executive order tells agencies to consider recent or planned layoffs of comparable U.S. workers.
DHS has also proposed a distinct cap-petition fee; public comments are due Sept. 24.
President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Sept. 18 extending for another 12 months the restriction first created in 2025 for certain H-1B workers outside the United States. The proclamation says entry is restricted unless the sponsoring employer has made a $100,000 payment, subject to national-interest exceptions determined by the Department of Homeland Security. The renewed restriction took effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Sept. 21 and is written to run until Sept. 21, 2027.
That is only one half of the story. A federal district court in Massachusetts ruled on June 8 that the agency actions implementing the 2025 payment policy were unlawful and vacated them. On July 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied the administration's request to put that ruling on hold while the appeal proceeds. Immigration practitioners reported after the appellate order that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acknowledged the ruling and stopped collecting the payment. The government's appeal on the merits remains pending.
For employers and workers, the distinction between a presidential proclamation and the agencies' ability to implement it is not academic. It determines whether a petition can be filed without the extra $100,000, whether a worker abroad can proceed toward admission, and how much risk a company accepts when planning a hire months in advance. The Sept. 18 extension preserves the administration's policy position and its ability to revive the requirement if the legal barrier is lifted, but it does not erase the existing court order.
The administration is building a broader H-1B enforcement system, not just extending a fee
The Sept. 18 actions came in two pieces. The proclamation renewed the $100,000 payment condition for certain workers who are outside the United States. A separate executive order widened the administration's approach to H-1B oversight. It instructs the Departments of State, Labor and Homeland Security to coordinate with the Commerce and Education departments and the Small Business Administration, using wage, employment, academic and industry data when reviewing the program.
The order also directs the reviewing agencies to take into account whether a sponsoring employer directly or indirectly carried out layoffs during the previous year, or plans future layoffs that negatively affect similarly situated U.S. workers. Within 30 days, the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division is directed to begin reviewing data from previously filed labor condition applications to determine whether enforcement action may be warranted.
The renewed proclamation targets certain H-1B workers outside the country and again sets a $100,000 employer payment as the condition for entry, subject to exceptions.
Recent or planned layoffs affecting comparable U.S. workers are now expressly identified as information agencies should consider in H-1B processing.
Commerce, Education and the Small Business Administration are brought into the information-sharing framework alongside State, Labor and Homeland Security.
The Labor Department is ordered to begin a retrospective review of labor condition application data within 30 days.
The White House frames the changes as worker-protection and program-integrity measures. Its executive order says some employers and outsourcing firms have used H-1B hiring to undercut U.S. labor and suppress wages. Those are administration findings and policy judgments, not uncontested facts. Federal law already requires H-1B employers to pay at least the higher of the employer's actual wage for comparable workers or the prevailing wage for the occupation and area. The political dispute is over whether those protections are adequate, how frequently they are evaded, and how aggressively the executive branch can alter the program without new legislation from Congress.
A court did not merely criticize the $100,000 policy; it vacated the agency actions that made it work
The central lawsuit, brought by a coalition of 20 states, challenged how DHS and the State Department implemented the 2025 proclamation. The states argued that the executive branch had crossed statutory and constitutional lines and that the payment would harm public employers such as universities, schools and health systems that rely on specialized workers. On June 8, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled against the government and vacated the implementation policy.
The First Circuit's July 24 order is narrower than a final merits decision: it denied the administration's request for a stay while the appeal continues. But the practical consequence was significant. With no stay in place, the district court's vacatur remained operative. The appellate panel said the government had not shown a sufficient likelihood of success to justify suspending the lower court's order at that stage. USCIS subsequently indicated it would comply and stop collecting the $100,000 payment while the order remained in force, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Why the Sept. 18 extension does not settle the dispute
The new proclamation extends the same presidential restriction that was implemented through agency actions now vacated by the Massachusetts court. Immigration law firm Fragomen said the extension should remain blocked under the existing order unless a court lifts it or the government successfully argues that new implementation falls outside the order.
That assessment is legal analysis, not a new court ruling. The administration could seek further appellate relief or issue new guidance, and the plaintiffs could return to court if agencies attempt to collect the payment again. Employers therefore face a policy that is formally renewed but judicially constrained.
Original proclamation
The president announces the $100,000 payment condition for certain H-1B workers abroad.
Weighted selection finalized
DHS finalizes a wage-weighted cap selection system for the FY 2027 season.
District court vacates implementation
The Massachusetts court sets aside the agency policy used to implement the proclamation payment.
First Circuit denies a stay
The appellate court refuses to pause the district court ruling while the government's appeal proceeds.
White House extends the restriction
A new proclamation carries the policy through Sept. 21, 2027, while a separate executive order adds layoff-focused scrutiny.
Even without the blocked payment, the old pure-lottery model is gone for cap-subject cases
The H-1B debate can be confusing because several policy tracks now overlap. The annual statutory framework still generally provides 65,000 cap-subject visas, plus an additional 20,000 slots for beneficiaries with qualifying advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. Universities, affiliated nonprofits and certain research organizations can qualify for cap exemptions, and many petitions involving workers already counted against the cap are handled outside the annual numerical competition.
What changed for fiscal 2027 is how USCIS selects among excess registrations. DHS finalized a weighted selection rule in December 2025 that favors higher wage levels while preserving some chance for registrations at every wage level. The rule took effect before the FY 2027 registration season. That shift is legally distinct from the $100,000 proclamation payment and remains part of the current program unless separately changed or successfully challenged.
The White House says the combined effects of the 2025 payment policy and the weighted selection rule changed who entered the cap pipeline. In the Sept. 18 proclamation, the administration reported that registrations by the largest IT staffing and outsourcing firms fell from 24,946 to 2,055, a 92% decline; that consular-processing requests fell nearly 97% between the FY 2025 and FY 2027 cap seasons; and that the share of registrants with at least a U.S. master's degree rose from 45.1% for FY 2026 to 66.1% for FY 2027. It also said the top two wage levels accounted for 46.3% of selections, while the lowest wage level represented 17.8%.
Those figures come from the White House's own proclamation and support the administration's explanation for extending the policy. They show changes in filing patterns, but by themselves they do not isolate how much of each shift was caused by the payment rule, the weighted selection system, hiring conditions or other immigration changes.
The new executive order aims at the politically hardest question: can a company cut U.S. jobs and still sponsor H-1B workers?
Federal law already contains anti-displacement rules for certain H-1B-dependent employers and willful violators, and it requires employers to make wage and working-condition attestations. The new executive order adds a broader policy instruction: when agencies consider H-1B labor condition applications, petitions, visas and entry, they are to take account of whether the sponsoring employer directly or indirectly had layoffs in the previous year or plans layoffs that hurt similarly situated U.S. workers.
The order does not, by its text, establish a single automatic rule saying that any company with layoffs is barred from using H-1B workers. Instead, it tells agencies to incorporate layoff information into their decisions consistent with existing immigration statutes. That distinction matters because implementation will depend on agency guidance, enforcement practice and, potentially, litigation over how much discretion the executive branch has.
Supporters of stricter H-1B policy have long argued that the program can be used to reduce labor costs, particularly through staffing and outsourcing arrangements. Business groups and many universities counter that H-1B workers fill specialized roles, contribute to research and innovation, and can be difficult to replace in the U.S. labor market. The Labor Department's standing rules already require an H-1B worker to receive at least the higher of the actual wage paid to comparable employees or the local prevailing wage. The disagreement is less about whether wage protection should exist than about whether current rules and enforcement adequately prevent substitution and underpayment.
The policy shift is moving from a visa-by-visa question toward an employer-behavior question. The government is signaling that wage level, layoff history, outsourcing patterns and sector conditions may be considered together.
The worker's location and the petition path remain crucial
The renewed proclamation is written around entry into the United States and petitions for workers who are outside the country. It directs DHS to restrict decisions on covered H-1B petitions that are not accompanied by the $100,000 payment and directs State to verify payment during the visa process. It also authorizes national-interest exceptions for an individual, a company or an industry when DHS determines that the hiring serves the national interest and does not threaten U.S. security or welfare.
Workers already inside the United States are in a different posture. Reuters reported that the proclamation fee did not apply to current H-1B holders and foreign graduates already in the country moving into H-1B status, which is consistent with the policy's focus on workers needing admission from abroad. Ordinary H-1B rules still govern changes of status, extensions, amended employment and changes of employer, and some cases are cap-exempt or involve workers already counted against the cap.
Most directly targeted
The proclamation is aimed at covered workers who must seek admission. If the payment policy is ever revived, these consular or entry-dependent cases are the clearest area of exposure.
Different procedural lane
Many extensions, changes of employer and changes of status do not require the worker to enter the country to activate the petition. The exact treatment depends on the petition and the worker's status.
Because the payment is currently blocked by the court order, employers should not treat the $100,000 figure as a routine amount that USCIS is collecting today. At the same time, companies planning future international hires cannot assume the issue is over. The administration is appealing, the proclamation has been extended, and the legal framework could change quickly if a higher court grants relief or a new rule is finalized under different statutory authority.
Why states, universities and smaller employers say a six-figure payment changes the labor market in a different way
The 20-state lawsuit emphasized public-sector consequences. The states argued that a $100,000 charge attached to certain H-1B hires would make it harder to staff public colleges, universities, schools and health systems. The district court accepted that the policy imposed concrete harms on the plaintiff states and went on to rule against the implementation framework.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pursuing a separate challenge in the D.C. Circuit. The Chamber argues that the executive branch lacks authority to impose the payment through the proclamation and that a charge of that size can make H-1B hiring unaffordable for startups and small or midsize businesses. Its case remains pending. The Chamber's position reflects a broader business argument: large companies may be able to absorb or route around very high immigration costs, while smaller firms, nonprofit employers and specialized public institutions have less flexibility.
The administration's counterargument is that the high payment is intentionally selective. The White House says it deters lower-wage recruitment and encourages employers to reserve the program for workers whose skills are valuable enough to justify the cost. That logic is also visible in the weighted selection rule, which gives more selection weight to higher-paid positions.
DHS is also proposing a $103,265 cap-petition fee under a different legal theory
While the proclamation payment is tied to presidential entry authority and remains caught in litigation, DHS has opened a separate rulemaking that could create an additional $103,265 fee for all cap-subject H-1B petitions, including petitions eligible for the advanced-degree exemption. The proposal was published in the Federal Register on Aug. 25, and the public-comment period closes Sept. 24.
This proposed fee is not in effect. DHS says it would be a cost-recovery mechanism under immigration fee authorities and would help fund immigration-related operations across DHS, the Justice Department, State and Labor. The department calculated the proposed amount by dividing roughly $8.78 billion in costs it wants to recover by a projected 85,000 fee-paying cap petitions.
The proposal is important precisely because DHS describes it as legally separate from the proclamation payment. The Federal Register notice explicitly acknowledges the Massachusetts court ruling and says that if the court order is later lifted, DHS would collect the proclamation payment consistent with the proclamation and any extension. That means the government is pursuing two potentially overlapping routes: a renewed presidential entry restriction and a notice-and-comment fee regulation grounded in separate statutory authority.
If the regulatory proposal is finalized substantially as written, litigation would be likely, but the legal questions would not be identical to those in the current First Circuit case. Courts would examine the authority DHS relies on for the fee, the relationship between the amount and the costs it seeks to recover, the agency's explanation and the administrative record developed through public comments.
Four developments will determine whether the renewed policy becomes an actual payment requirement
The first is the First Circuit merits appeal in the states' case. A stay request is not the same as a final appellate decision, so the administration can still argue that the district court interpreted presidential and agency authority too narrowly. A final decision could clarify whether the implementation policy was unlawful because of the amount charged, the statutory source of authority, administrative procedure, or some combination of those issues.
The second is whether the administration seeks emergency relief from the Supreme Court or issues new implementation guidance. Any attempt to restart collection under the extension could generate immediate litigation over the scope of the existing vacatur.
The third is the separate Chamber of Commerce appeal in the D.C. Circuit. That case attacks the payment from a different plaintiff posture and remains pending, adding another appellate path that could address executive power over H-1B costs and entry conditions.
The fourth is agency rulemaking. DHS's proposed $103,265 cap fee and the Labor Department's proposed overhaul of prevailing-wage methodology could reshape the program even if the proclamation payment never returns. The administration is therefore not relying on one legal mechanism. It is using presidential action, immigration adjudication, wage rules, selection rules and enforcement coordination in parallel.
Near-term checkpoints
- Sept. 24: public comments close on DHS's proposed $103,265 cap-petition fee.
- Fall 2026: briefing and further action in the First Circuit appeal over the proclamation payment.
- Agency guidance: any USCIS or State Department notice changing current non-collection practice.
- Labor enforcement: the 30-day start point for the ordered review of previously filed labor condition application data.
There is no single H-1B rule change to understand anymore
For a worker or employer, the most important discipline is to separate measures that are in effect from measures that have been announced, proposed, blocked or appealed. The wage-weighted selection process is a current structural change for cap-subject selection. The Sept. 18 executive order is a current presidential directive for interagency coordination and layoff-sensitive scrutiny, though its day-to-day effect will depend on implementation. The $100,000 proclamation payment has been extended in text but remains constrained by a federal court order that vacated the prior implementation policy. The $103,265 regulatory fee is only a proposal as of Sept. 21.
That layered status is likely to persist. Immigration policy is often built through statute, regulation, executive action and individual adjudications at the same time. Here, the political stakes are higher because the H-1B program sits at the intersection of technology hiring, university research, health care staffing, wages, outsourcing, immigration control and the separation of powers.
The administration's position is clear: it wants a program that channels visas toward higher-paid, higher-skilled workers and subjects employers to more scrutiny when U.S. layoffs are involved. The challengers' position is also clear: they argue that the executive branch cannot use a six-figure payment to rewrite a program Congress established and that the cost can damage public institutions and smaller employers. The courts are now deciding where executive discretion ends and congressional authority begins.
Until that boundary is clearer, the safest factual description is not that the $100,000 H-1B fee is simply "back." It is that the White House has renewed the policy, preserved its claim to use it for another year, and paired it with broader enforcement measures — while the federal judiciary continues to prevent the existing payment mechanism from operating.
H-1B policy FAQ
Is USCIS collecting the $100,000 proclamation payment today?
Current reporting and practitioner guidance say no. The Massachusetts district court vacated the implementation policy, the First Circuit denied the government's request to stay that ruling, and USCIS acknowledged it would comply. The administration is appealing and has extended the underlying proclamation, so the status can change.
Does the Sept. 18 proclamation apply to every H-1B petition?
No. Its text focuses on certain H-1B workers who are outside the United States and need entry to effectuate the petition. It also authorizes national-interest exceptions. Cases involving workers already in the United States, cap exemptions, extensions and changes of employer can follow different rules.
Is the separate $103,265 DHS fee already law?
No. It is a proposed rule published Aug. 25, 2026. The comment period runs through Sept. 24. DHS would have to complete the rulemaking process before a final fee could take effect.
Did the administration change the H-1B lottery?
Yes. DHS finalized a weighted selection process for cap-subject registrations that generally gives more selection weight to higher wage levels while retaining an opportunity for lower wage levels. It was in effect for the FY 2027 cap season.
What wage protections already exist for H-1B workers?
Labor Department rules require the employer to pay at least the higher of the actual wage paid to comparable workers at the employer or the prevailing wage for the occupation and area of employment, along with other labor-condition protections.
Sources and primary records
- White House proclamation, “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers,” Sept. 18, 2026.
- White House executive order on H-1B program integrity and interagency coordination, Sept. 18, 2026.
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit order in State of California v. Mullin, July 24, 2026.
- American Immigration Lawyers Association update on the court order and USCIS compliance, updated July 29, 2026.
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce case page, Chamber of Commerce v. DHS, D.C. Circuit docket 25-5473.
- U.S. Department of Labor, H-1B worker rights and wage requirements.
- DHS final rule, Weighted Selection Process for cap-subject H-1B petitions, published Dec. 29, 2025.
- DHS proposed rule, Fee for Certain H-1B Petitions, published Aug. 25, 2026.
- Fragomen analysis of the Sept. 18 extension and existing court order.
- Reuters reporting on the Sept. 18 extension, court litigation and affected H-1B categories.
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