Dear {name}:

This week’s sermon started out as a response to the irrepressible public outcry against employment visa programs that President Trump’s administration is having to respond to. It’s a lengthy scree but, I believe it is information that will help you to better understand the flurry of executive orders, rule changes and investigations that are making headlines these days. 

Better Interagency Coordination

A few hours before we went to press, the White House issued an executive order, "Enhancing Program Integrity and Interagency Coordination in the Administration of the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Program." The order asserts there is "large-scale, systematic abuse" of the program by certain employers, placement groups, and outsourcing firms seeking lower-paid, lower-skilled foreign labor. It then directs State, Labor, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to coordinate with Commerce, Education, and Small Business Administration to ensure H-1B filings comply with INA §§ 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), 212(n), 214(i), and 274B. It also instructs those agencies to weigh employer layoffs affecting similarly situated U.S. workers when handling H-1B filings. In addition, it orders Department of Labor (DOL) to begin reviewing past LCAs for possible enforcement action within 30 days, and delegates the President's § 215(a) entry authority to the various agencies.

Directing several agencies to coordinate the weighing of an employer's recent or planned layoffs affecting American workers when handling LCAs, petitions, and visas, as well as giving them the authority to act could prove to be very helpful at a time of so many layoffs.

New Fees for H-1B Petitions

Back in September 2025, during a late Friday afternoon press conference in the Oval Office, President Trump, under the gaze of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, proclaimed a $100,000 payment requirement for certain new H-1B petitions.

Within weeks, lawsuits were filed against the policy by advocacy groups, universities, and the Chamber of Commerce. Although the Department of Homeland Security won at the district court level in D.C. in December 2025, it lost in Massachusetts in June, when Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that the payment functioned as an unauthorized tax and vacated its implementation. The administration appealed, but the First Circuit refused to stay that ruling, leaving the $100,000 payment blocked for the time being.

Taking a lesson from the above, the administration has now pursued a separate fee through ordinary rulemaking. A proposed rule published in the Federal Register in late August would impose a $103,265 fee on cap-subject H-1B petitions. The comment period ends September 24. Once finalized, we will see what legal challenges follow.

DOL’s Prevailing Wage Overhaul

The Department of Labor has also been active. Back in March, it published a proposed rule that would raise wage levels for H-1B, H-1B1, E-3, and PERM through across-the-board percentile increases for all four wage tiers. Level I, for example, would rise to the 34th percentile.

In my view, the increases remain far too modest to meaningfully benefit American workers. Level I compensation should begin no lower than the 75th percentile for the relevant occupation and geographic area. In layman’s terms, the lowest H-1B wage tier would generally require compensation equal to or higher than what roughly 75 percent of workers in that occupation and area earn.

To date, no final rule has been published.

H-1B Weighted Lottery Selection

In a final rule published in December 2025, DHS amended how USCIS selects H-1B registrations for cap-subject petitions. The rule took effect for the latest H-1B lottery. Under the new system, registrations are weighted according to applicable wage levels, giving higher-wage-level positions greater odds of selection while keeping Level I workers eligible.

Ending the 60-Day Grace Period

Earlier this month, DHS published a proposed rule titled “Eliminating the Discretionary 60-Day Grace Period.”

Those here on H-1B, E-1/E-2, E-3, L-1, O-1, TN, and H-1B1 whose employment ends would lose the current up-to-60-day grace period. Under the proposal, they would generally be considered to have failed to maintain status beginning the day after their qualifying employment ends unless they have another lawful basis to remain.

The Obama administration created the grace period to give workers time to change employers or pursue another immigration status. Eliminating it would also make workers who remain after losing status more readily subject to removal proceedings.

Being out of status and accruing unlawful presence are not necessarily the same thing. The 180-day and one-year thresholds concern the amount of unlawful presence that can trigger three- and ten-year inadmissibility bars after departure.

Eliminate H-4 EAD

Although this remains an agenda item for DHS, there is a proposal, RIN 1615-AD14, to remove employment authorization eligibility from certain spouses of H-1B workers on H-4 visas. No proposed rule text has yet been published. Hope springs eternal!

Ending Duration of Status

The day before the final duration-of-status rule was scheduled to take effect, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston issued a nationwide preliminary injunction postponing its implementation while litigation proceeds.

In late August, I wrote a Substack about the strange coalition of unions and universities that joined hands to challenge the rule. In my view, their suit lacks merit. The final rule would replace the open-ended “duration of status” framework for F, J, and I nonimmigrants with fixed admission periods and require extensions when necessary.

It remains to be seen how the administration responds in court.

DOJ Putting Americans First

Since the Justice Department relaunched its Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative in 2025, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s office has maintained a steady stream of citizenship-status discrimination enforcement actions.

Last month DOJ reached a $3.2 million settlement with OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig over allegations of citizenship-status discrimination against U.S. workers during PERM recruitment. The settlement included $1.2 million in civil penalties and a $2 million back-pay fund.

And speaking of what may be coming next, an ICE proposed rule titled “Optional Practical Training Fees” has already cleared White House regulatory review. What the fee will actually be remains unknown because the proposed rule has not yet been published. Reports of a $100,000 OPT fee therefore remain unconfirmed for now.

The public furor over employment visas is not going away. It is actually getting louder and has become a prominent part of the America First agenda. To date, the results have been mixed. It is easy to get angry with the pace of change, but from my perspective, real progress is being made, and that shouldn’t be discounted. No one said this would be easy. The changes and reforms we want to see face opposition from numerous powerful interests.

Expose H-1B Fraud, who goes by the handle @JobsNowPaper, rightly called out the community for its comfortable complacency—shitposting on X but doing little more. At the time of his post, he reported that of 10,648 public comments submitted on the proposed 60-day grace-period rule, 9,145 opposed the change while only 1,192 supported it. The comment period remains open through November 10, so those numbers will continue to change.

For a community that says these policies have harmed American white-collar professionals, the level of participation is strikingly low.

There are people throughout the administration advancing the America First agenda, but they cannot do this alone. As my mother would often chide me, “Many hands make light work.” This is a job that will take all of us.

Ultimately, with all these executive actions, regulations, and court challenges flying around, what matters most is not what gets announced with great fanfare.

It is what ultimately sticks!

Onward,









Kevin Lynn

Executive Director, Institute for Sound Public Policy

Founder, U.S. Tech Workers