Trump's $100k Visa Application Fee Plan Is Back and This Time Dems Will Have a Harder Time Stopping It
The Trump administration has proposed a $103,265 fee for most new H-1B visa applications that replaces a prior $100,000 fee — imposed by presidential proclamation — that was shut down by federal judge Leo Sorokin, an Obama appointee.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security filed a notice of proposed rulemaking announcing its plan to add a $103,265 fee to new H-1B visa filings, which must be paid upfront before the government decides whether to approve a petition.
“The proposed fee would be paid at the time of filing and would be imposed in addition to all other applicable fees or payments,” DHS said in a statement.
The public will have a 30-day period to submit comments before the proposal can take effect.
The new proposed fee is more likely to go through than the prior $100,000 fee because it’s a formal, proposed agency regulation — not a presidential proclamation.
The proposal also frames the fee as a cost-recovery measure for the broader legal immigration system, and avoids the “tax on entry” framing that Judge Sorokin had used to reject it.
The fee is intended to recover a portion of the federal government’s costs for administering the lawful immigration system, including activities conducted by DHS, ICE, the Justice Department, the State Department, and the Department of Labor.
President Donald Trump has issued executive actions aimed at overhauling the H-1B program, which is used heavily by the tech industry.
Microsoft’s Indian CEO just fired 3,200 American workers while filing for 5,000 new H-1B visas. This is exactly why any company that does mass layoffs should be banned from hiring H-1Bs to replace them.
Companies are undercutting loyal American employees to bring in cheaper… pic.twitter.com/fH9dRvoYYT
— Kangmin Lee | 이강민 (@kangminlee) July 12, 2026
The proposed new fee would not apply to cap-exempt H-1B petitions, such as those from some nonprofit research organizations, governmental research organizations, or educational institutions.
The tech sector typically accounts for almost 50 percent of all approved H-1B petitions.
As a reminder, the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, and IBM came to the United States via H-1B visas.
Now these foreign-born individuals are in charge of the biggest tech companies in the world.
For reference, the Department of Labor processed 6.9 million labor filings for H-1B visa holders since 2015. More than 70 percent of those applications came from India.
Mahvash Siddiqui, who worked at the U.S. consulate in Chennai, India, from 2005 to 2007, said scam rings in India have hijacked the H-1B program to steal American jobs.
“I would say 80 to 90 percent of the people that I encountered in each of the visa categories … were basically using the non-immigrant visa pipeline to essentially come and work in the United States and never go back home and essentially displace American workers,” Siddiqui said in December 2025, per Newsweek.
CEO of Alphabet Google 🇮🇳
CEO of Microsoft 🇮🇳
CEO of YouTube 🇮🇳
CEO of Adobe 🇮🇳
CEO of Procter & Gamble (P&G) 🇮🇳
CEO of T-Mobile US 🇮🇳
CEO of World Bank Group 🇮🇳
CEO of IBM 🇮🇳
CEO of Infosys 🇮🇳
CEO of NetApp 🇮🇳
CEO of Palo Alto Networks 🇮🇳
CEO of Arista Networks 🇮🇳
CEO of…— World of Statistics (@stats_feed) August 26, 2026
H-1B Visas Are Stripping Americans of Entry-Level Jobs, Especially Young Whites pic.twitter.com/DGbXtbMIk9
— Ben Wehrman (@benwehrman) June 27, 2026
There has been escalating backlash against the scam-riddled H-1B program, which is being abused to displace American workers and to sneak in hordes of foreigners by bypassing the legal immigration process.
THERE IS NO LIMIT ON HOW MANY FAMILY MEMBERS AN H-1B WORKER CAN BRING
Example: A wife and 7 kids means 9 people entering on one worker’s approval. The H-4 dependent visa has no annual cap.
FY2025: 214,596 H-1B visas issued.
Another 146,158 H-4 dependent visas alongside them.… pic.twitter.com/1KPMNLpBHA— LayoffHedge (@LayoffAI) August 23, 2026
Siddiqui said she saw widespread use of forged documents — including university degrees and marriage certificates.
Some Indian districts are hubs where sham visa consultancy shops sold counterfeit credentials and coached applicants on how to pass the visa issuance process.
The irony is that we’ve been repeatedly told by the establishment media that the U.S. needs to mass-import foreigners because there’s a shortage of highly skilled workers in America.
“H-1B has been marketed to Americans as a tightly enforced, rigorously vetted, merit-based system that admits only the world’s best and brightest for highly skilled jobs that few Americans can do,” Rep. Riley Moore, a Republican from West Virginia, wrote in a Fox News commentary.
“In reality, it is a loosely monitored system that allows cheap and often entry-level workers to occupy jobs that Americans would gladly fill,” he underscored.
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