Trump Extends H-1B Visa Fee, Tightens Layoff Scrutiny

President Donald Trump signed an executive order and a presidential proclamation on September 19, 2026, escalating the administration's crackdown on the H-1B visa, the skilled-worker program that admits hundreds of thousands of foreign professionals each year. The proclamation renews the requirement that employers pay a fee of one hundred thousand dollars with certain new H-1B visa petitions, a policy first imposed one year earlier. The executive order directs federal agencies to scrutinize the hiring practices of companies that have laid off American workers.

According to the White House, the fee renewal applies to certain H-1B applications, though the fact sheet accompanying the announcement did not specify the length of the extension or detail its exemptions. Reports citing the announcement put the renewal through September 21, 2027. The original proclamation, issued September 19, 2025, did not apply to foreign citizens already in the United States on student visas or to renewals of existing visas, according to reporting at the time.

Layoff checks for sponsoring employers

The executive order is the more novel half of Friday's action. It directs the secretaries of state, labor, and homeland security to consider whether an employer has directly or indirectly carried out layoffs during the previous year, or plans future cuts affecting similarly situated American workers, when reviewing H-1B visa labor condition applications, petitions, visas, and entry decisions. The order does not mandate automatic rejection of any application solely because an employer has announced layoffs.

It also sets a 30-day deadline for the labor secretary, acting through the department's Wage and Hour Division, to begin reviewing data from previously filed labor condition applications to decide whether further action against sponsoring employers is warranted. The three departments must consult the commerce and education departments and the Small Business Administration on H-1B cases, drawing on wage, employment, academic, and industrial data to judge compliance. In the order, Trump wrote that continued efforts "must be made to protect and prioritize the American workforce."

The proclamation states that the H-1B program "has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labour." The White House framed Friday's actions as a continuation of the policy imposed a year ago, saying the fee requirement targets what it describes as long-running abuse of the skilled-worker visa.

A fee the courts have already blocked

The renewed fee arrives with significant legal baggage. On June 8, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the government's implementation of the 2025 proclamation in a case brought by the state of California, finding the agencies had acted unlawfully in demanding the payment. On July 24, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to pause that ruling while the government's appeal proceeds. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has said it will comply with the court order, meaning the fee cannot currently be collected.

Immigration attorneys note that renewing the proclamation does not erase the court order. According to an analysis published by immigration lawyer Cyrus Mehta, the existing nationwide vacatur targets the agency actions implementing the payment requirement, so the extension should remain unenforceable unless the judgment is stayed or reversed. "The President cannot evade an operative judicial order simply by extending or reissuing the underlying proclamation," the analysis states.

The administration says the policy has already reshaped employer behavior. Figures cited in the White House announcement indicate registrations by major IT staffing and outsourcing firms fell 92% after the 2025 proclamation, alongside a nearly 97% decline in consular processing requests.

Why the stakes are high for tech hiring

The H-1B visa is one of the main routes through which American employers recruit skilled foreign professionals. Government figures show roughly two-thirds of jobs secured through the program are computer-related, though employers also use it for engineers, educators, and healthcare workers. India was the largest beneficiary last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries, while China was a distant second at 11.7%.

Business groups maintain the visas are essential for recruiting highly skilled professionals and filling talent gaps. Deedy Das, a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, said the fee "creates disincentive to attract the world's smartest talent to the U.S." and warned that losing that pull "drastically reduces its ability to innovate and grow the economy." Some major users have already shifted strategy: Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has been expanding its operations in India as H-1B processing tightened. The visa crackdown also sits alongside the administration's broader workforce agenda, including its plans for an AI force and AI czar to boost US tech.

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule on August 25, 2026, for a new fee slightly above one hundred thousand dollars for all H-1B cap-subject petitions. If finalized, that charge would apply more broadly than the proclamation fee, though it would still need to survive the same legal challenges now playing out in federal court. The administration's next move on the vacated fee is expected once the First Circuit rules on the pending appeal.

Sources: IANS wire report on the White House announcement and Nation Press on the fee renewal and layoff checks and analysis of the order's legal standing by Cyrus Mehta.