$100k H-1B Fee Litigation Update, Lottery News, and Incoming H-1B Wage Increases | Immigration News Recap (March 20, 2026)

Kicking Off the Episode: Welcome and H1B News Focus This podcast is brought to you by Lawfully, the leading immigration case tracking and data solution, delivering the most precise real time government case processing intelligence to immigration practitioners and individuals. Hey everybody, welcome back to Real Time Immigration. My name is Finn Reynolds. I'm Head of Insights and Strategy at Lawfully and we're recording today on Thursday, March 19th. I'm here with my friend Andrew Crabaum, the great immigration reporter from Bloomberg Law. And we haven't done a podcast covering the news in a while. So I asked Andrew to come on and we're going to we're going to chop it up about some of the some of the latest immigration news focused primarily on the H1B world, which has had plenty happening over the last several weeks. And Andrew has been at the forefront of covering all of those events and happenings. So, so that's what we're going to jump in today. Maybe we'll talk for 30 or 45 minutes or so and, and hopefully as you are coming down from from the H1B cap registration period, you can listen to this and get caught up on all the news you may have missed while you were heads down on that. But Andrew, how are things going, man? How are things in in DC? Has the has the immigration beat been treating you for the last couple weeks? Speaker 2 It's it's good in DC not, not, not a lot happening on immigration or H1 BS lately, right. Just a few, a few court cases on this $100,000 fee and registration period for the lottery closing, closing later this afternoon. But you know, we got, we got some spring weather coming here soon. So excited about that. Speaker 1 Eddie, what are they called? Cherry blossoms? Cherry blossoms, yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, they're they're coming out peak, peak blooms in a couple, a couple weeks here. Speaker 1 We have, we have them in Madrid too, in the parks, which I don't know. I mean, maybe maybe there was. I know that the Japanese gave the, the gave Washington, it's cherry blossoms. I don't know if Madrid had a similar arrangement or something like that. But they're very pretty and it reminds me of my my, my days in DC back in back in the day. Speaker 2 I'll have to. I'll have to come check them out sometime. Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, cherry blossoms aside, as beautiful as they are, we're here to talk about H1 BS for the most part. USCIS Extends H1B Lottery Deadline Amid Portal Lag And, and like you mentioned, it's we're recording this at like 1:30 Eastern right now. And USCIS announced, I think it was this morning that they're extending the deadline by about 5 hours, which indicates one thing. And it's that they're still receiving a heavy, a heavy number of registrations up until sort of the very last hours. And so you reported on that this morning, right. The USCIS announced the the the extension of about 5 hours. Speaker 2 Yeah, I, I, I shouldn't update to to LinkedIn what what people know. But yeah, short a short extension to to that that window. But everyone who waited to the last minute, I I guess gets a a little more time to to get those in. Speaker 1 It's funny because I, I saw a few people on through attorneys post on LinkedIn yesterday that the, the H1B that the, the registration portal was, was lagging severely last night and it crashed for a few folks. And that again, that indicates a lot of usage at the very end. And having been a part of many H1B cap registration seasons myself, I can tell you that like all the planning and the logistics and operations that you put into place, like the last, you know, 48 hours are still a mad dash. And despite the shifts to electronic registration over the past couple years, that hasn't really changed much. And I think the, the, the confusion around this new system of the weighted lottery and having to map SoC codes to, to salaries, right, to potentially increase your odds for selection of the lottery. I think there were a lot of a lot of people who weren't playing paying close attention to that change until the registration period started. And they were sort of figuring it out on the fly. Not us. You and I have been talking about it since the summer, since the, since the, since the rule was, was was pending. Oh, I review, but I know that that that changes was something that a lot of folks were looking at seriously for the first time once the registration period started and realizing that it requires a lot more, a little bit more like the old days where you have to flesh out the actual application, potential application tied to the registration more than you did over the past couple of years were effectively like you just needed some very basic information about the purpose about the individual you wanted to register to submit them. And now you have to think about like, OK, what would employment for this person actually look like? But I think that's been clogging up the system. Immigration Attorneys React to New Weighted Lottery System But you talk to immigration attorneys all the time. So I mean, maybe we can just start off there. And again, a lot of immigration attorneys listen to this, so I'm, I'm always curious to hear the listeners thoughts too, so you can always e-mail me. But Andrew, what what sort of been the vibe and the sentiment you've been hearing from immigration attorneys around the shift to this, this weighted lottery system that we're in the middle of right now? Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I was, I was definitely hearing some of the same, you know, in the, in the weeks and and days leading up to this registration window opening that, you know, even if companies hadn't changed plans as far as are we going to enter this worker in the lottery or not. There's there's so much more planning and strategizing that this process required upfront now rather than just paying, you know, a $10 fee or last couple years now 215. I, I, I think and entering some basic info now you have to think about, you know, SoC codes, like you said, what, what wage level was this person going to be slotted into? You know, how's that going to match up with the, the, the job duties? Where are they going to be located towards the geographic market? What's, what's a salary they're going to be paid in on October one when the H1B period starts. So just just a lot of questions. A a lot more work dotting IS crossing T's this time at at the front end. So it's, I guess considering all that, it's, it's a little understandable that you'd have a lot of folks actually submitting closer to the, the end of of this deadline. And, and I think, you know, I've talked about we, we had these, this court case is ongoing over the $100,000 fee plaintiffs, you know, asking courts to block enforcement. So if there had been a, a ruling during this window that that really could have thrown things for a loop as well. Of course, it doesn't look like that's that's going to happen at, at, at this point. So we, we can, we can probably expect there will be a significant change to the, the number of workers sponsored from, you know, outside the US after this wraps up. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And we can, we can table the the $100,000 fee legal challenge conversation for now because like you said, nothing, nothing definitive happened during this registration period that I think will majorly shifts, you know, whether or not companies are going to pursue registrations for, for individuals who are outside of the US, outside of the US, excuse me, that would be subject to $100,000 fee as it stands right now. How the $100k Fee Affects H1B Selection Rates But like you mentioned and you and I talked about this months ago for because of the $100,000 fee primarily the the number of registrations you know, is expected to decrease. And, and I expected that, you know, back we talked a couple of months ago and we looked at the, the Bloomberg data that you all reported on about, you know, it, it being anywhere between 30 and 30 and 50% decrease just based off of previous years, you know, H1B cap registration that the make up of the registration pool being about, you know, anywhere between 40 and 50% folks who, who are located overseas. And again this year would be subject to paying $100,000 fee if that took place. And largely that's what I've been hearing from the, the, the, the companies, the law firms that I talked to is that, you know, not it's, it's not uniform. A lot of companies are submitting the exact same number of registrations they've submitted last year and the year before. And then there are companies that are submitting, you know, almost none, right, very or reducing the number of registrations are submitting by 90% or by 80%. And then I've heard from a few other players in the industry, some have posted about it on LinkedIn that they're hearing similar things, right? They're sort of expecting a 40 to 50% decrease in registrations, which would put, you know, the number of registrations from 340,000 roughly, which is what we had last year of unique eligible registrations all the way down to, you know, under 200,000. Which oddly enough, and I, I, I posted about this on LinkedIn and, and maybe I can, I can share a link to that post so folks listening can, can check it out. Oddly enough, is going, if that happens, it will increase the selection rates for all prevailing wage levels. So like last year, it was about like a 3035% selection rate randomized regardless of your wage level. If it's if it's like if, if it's cut in half, number of registrations is cut in half, very likely that even level 1 applicants will have a 35 to 40% chance of getting selected. For level 4 applicants, it could be as high as 85%. So if you're a company and you submitted, you know, 10 level 4 applicants, excuse me, 1010 registrants at, at wage level 4, you know, eight or nine of those should be getting selected if these numbers hold. So overall, right, the, the, the, the, the companies and the folks that are still involved in participating at a high level or at a high volume in this H1B lottery could be benefiting from this new system and the $100,000 fee. But obviously there's a whole, there's a whole group in, in multiple groups of of companies and individuals that are no longer able to participate or it doesn't make financial sense for them to participate. Speaker 2 And they're, they're losing out on an opportunity that used to exist for them that, that, that at least this year, at least this year doesn't. Yeah. H1B Demand Declines Amid Tech Layoffs and Market Shifts And, and I think we reported this, that, that final rule in December on the, on the selection process. I, I think the agency estimated for level 1 the chances of selection would be about 15%. So, you know, like, like I said, it could be could be much higher just with with all these different factors at at play and a lot of a lot of companies making their own kind of calculus on, you know who to sponsor. Speaker 1 It's, it's exactly what it's a, it's a good point that you just raised like in the agency's own analysis and the rule, right, they were using relatively old data writing was like FY20 to FY20 24-H would be cap data. Those were all weird years, right? There was like there, there's, there's sort of no, since 2014, 2015, there hasn't been like once. And maybe even before that, there hasn't been like a, a normal or a uniform year for the H1B lottery because either the market is changing, right? The markets getting more, the demand is increasing. So the number of registrations is increasing or USCIS has changed something that has then had some sort of market reaction and there hasn't been like a normal year. But we, I think we were talking about this a couple of months ago between 2024 and 2025, the, the overall number of registrations went down quite a bit even though there were no major regulatory changes at the USCIS level. That was purely just like an indication that the market was relying a little bit less on, on, on going after new H1B employees, right, Employees who require a new H1B sponsorship between 2024 and 2025. And we're in 2026 now. And I think like yes, a lot of the, the decrease that we're very likely to see is going to be the result of of the companies individuals sort of being shooed away by the, by the ramifications of the $100,000 fee. But I think so, I think, you know, an unknown percentage of that is also just like the market shifting away, company shifting away from relying as heavily on H1B sponsorship. And just the fact that like, you know, we, we read it in the headlines all the time from Bloomberg, a lot like about just layoffs at some of these big tech companies. And without a doubt, if there's, you know, 10,000 folks laid off from a big tech company, a good chunk of those are are H1B employees or F1 employees who would later become H1B employees most likely. Speaker 2 Yeah, big, big, big tech layoffs. And then we've seen some some reporting in Bloomberg since the $100,000 fee proclamation. You know, a lot of a lot of the big multinationals are also looking at expanding their operations outside the US You know, hard to bring workers here. We'll just keep them in in India or or wherever instead. Speaker 1 Yeah, quite a few. I, I, I think I, you know, I think I read a couple of the articles of Bloomberg about quite a few tax CE OS going over to India and, you know, talking about investments that they would be making in, in, in Hyderabad and Bangalore and some of the other big tech hubs there. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, definitely. USCIS Targets H1B Fraud and Gray Area Lottery Strategies And and you know speak Speaking of the selection process and HIV petitions that there was that there there was an interesting little item that I had AI had a short story on today. There was a a recent decision at at the Administrate Initiative Appeals Office at USCIS. Speaker 1 That was released, by the way, which is, which is news in its own right. Speaker 2 Yeah. And they, they agency issued some, some bulk guidance to officers and, and, you know, basically the bottom line is, you know, just with withdrawing A petition, if, if, if the agency thinks there was some kind of improper conduct, like coordination to between employers to boost lottery odds, you know, something the Biden administration tried to address with, with their lottery changes, they, they can, they can make a finding of fraud or full misrepresentation, even if you pull the pull the petition. And that can have some pretty big ramifications down the road. And, and we know, you know, the broader context here is this agency, this, this administration that they talk about all the time that they're putting this laser focus on, on, on fraud in the immigration system. So you can imagine they're going to be scrutinizing especially with this new selection process the the petitions they they receive pretty closely. Speaker 1 Yeah. And this the, the introduction of this new system, I'm not going to say it invites fraud, but it, but it invites sort of Gray area strategies, creativity, yeah, as as all of these rule changes have and do around the H1B lottery that the, that the market will try to take advantage of it. And one of them that we talked a lot about in the lead up to the registration period with our, with our customers and our broader community of, of law firms and global mobility teams that we work with is the, the, the sort of like they were. USCIS was clear about it in the rule ultimately, but like it wasn't put front and center. This fact that I'm about to name here, which is employers were basically told by USCIS in the rule that if you have an entry level employee, somebody who's been working for one to two years, but you want to pay them the equivalent of a level three-way or a level 4 wage in the area in which they work. Let's say it's San Francisco and their software developer. You can do that and that individual will be counted, will get three or four chances in the lottery depending on what the equivalent of their prevailing wage level is. And we were, we were digging into the rule, you know, with a fine tooth comb me and Jonathan McHale and a bunch of the attorneys who who's a former USAIS leader and a bunch of the attorneys who who are part of our broader community. And because there were so many instances where USCIS just didn't make that that fact as clear as they should have, right? Which is, hey, like this lottery is built around the, the Department of Labor's prevailing wage system. But also, if you just pay somebody a higher wage, we'll count it, right? Like, and how that's going to play out in a in adjudication is going to be interesting because it's, it's something that's going to be maybe a little bit unfamiliar to, you know, the hundreds of USCIS adjudicators that are going to be working through these H1B petitions that are being submitted from April 1st to June 30th. And as a result, for, for, for many reasons, I think it's likely that, you know, we see an increase in RF ES that are going to be issued for H1 BS during the, I'd be extremely surprised if we don't. It's the RFV rate for H1 BS has remained quite low throughout the 1st 15 months of the Trump administration, sort of hovering around 10%, which is what it has historically been. It's, I'd be shocked if that didn't increase substantially between May, June and July. And obviously we'll be tracking that in real time at lawfully to see if it does. But the other component of it is what comes after those petitions are approved and those workers are supposed to start their their new roles under their H1B sponsorship on October 1st. And what sort of like the USCIS worksite follow-ups or worksite enforcement looks like on that front for maybe employers that they like, like you just mentioned, they, they see as, you know, having some suspicious activity that they might consider fraudulent and wanting to go do like a, a, a, a real world look at what those things are. And we're talking with a guy named Chris Tombeck, who is a, a former USAIS cops leader who focused a lot on each one of the worksite operations next week. And we're going to dig into that one a little bit more for our lawfully customers. But those are all those are all coming down the pipe and I should say, right, like it's March 19th right now, registration closes today and then USCIS says that by March 31st selections, individuals who were selected or companies that have employees that are selected will be notified of those selections and then filing can begin on April 1st. So I don't know how long it will take USCIS to release the selection numbers, but we're going to try it lawfully to reverse engineer based off of what our network and our customers are seeing, what we think the selection rate was and what the overall number of registrations was hopefully within the first couple of days or April or March. So quick plug, if you're, if you're not a lawfully customer, reach out to me or go to our website and, and sign up because you'll get early access to that info. And then maybe we'll give it to Andrew to report on a little bit later if it if it, if USCIS hasn't published the the numbers publicly. Speaker 2 All right. Deep Dive into the $100k H1B Fee Litigation Hearings All right, Andrew, let's maybe pivot to the $100,000 fee because that's where I wanted to to dig into a lot of the work that a lot of the reporting that you've been doing over the past couple of weeks. So there were two hearings separate cases on the $100,000 fee over the last couple of weeks that you've covered. So do you want to talk about those? Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure. Well, I, I think since, since the last time we spoke in the pod that there there was a, there was a hearing in DC District Court just for the holidays on a preliminary injunction that the US Chamber of Commerce was seeking on the, on the fee. And, and, and the Joes in that case who disappointed by a Democrat, maybe Obama, but but ruled, ruled for the government. And I think that was, that was real gut punch to employers and folks challenging this fee. But not now that case has gone an appeal to the DC Circuit. And so within a couple weeks, late late February, early March, we had hearings in Oakland in in one lawsuit, actually the the first challenge filed to to the fee by a coalition of healthcare and health healthcare recruiters in unions. I think there's a charter school, some some religious employers. So there was a, there was a hearing there on an injunction request. And then shortly after this, this case went before the the chamber case went before the DC Circuit here. And I had a chance to actually sit in on on that one. The interesting context is that between the holidays and these, these court hearings on the fee, the Trump administration lost a pretty big case at the Supreme Court over its, you know, global tariffs regime. And not long after that, you, you had, you had plaintiffs go to the courts and say, Hey, we, we think this kind of helps our case a little bit since the Supreme Court is saying only Congress has the authority to impose these revenue generating measures. So that, that, that was a pretty big focus of hearings in both cases. And you, you, you had these interesting sort of debates unfolding over what's a, what's a fee versus a tax? You know, it doesn't, doesn't even matter what you, what you call it, the government doesn't, doesn't think so Actually the, the, the, the point they, they've tried to make is it's, it's not really generating any revenue anyway. So it can't be a tax. So, so that's, that's kind of that's, that's been the big focus of of these cases. And, and we're waiting to see how how either court rules at this point on, you know, just how significant that tariffs ruling was for this H1B fee battle on top of other claims, you know, having to do with the Administrative Administrative Procedure Act and other, other, other elements of those those challenges. Judges Grapple with $100k Fee, DOJ Reveals Payment Data In I think you and I were Deming about this at the beginning of the year because in 2025 it sort of seemed like the Trump administration in terms of their regulatory initiatives or changes related to immigration, like on the scoreboard they were having, the Trump administration was having a pretty good year in terms of getting done what they wanted to get done. And then early 2026, we started to see sort of a, a shift in a wave of legal challenges to many of those initiatives who those regulatory changes being reversed by, by judges. That, and it's in its own right, could be like sort of a whole conversation around, you know, the, the like the, the, the long term strategy of the Trump administration when they're making these changes and how thoughtful they were and how, you know, durable they made these regulations to, to, to litigation. I think with, with some, they certainly did that like the weighted lottery rule, which like there was a lot, I mean, you report on it last year, a lot of attorneys were saying, oh, this is going to get challenged in court. It probably won't be in place come, you know, March of 2026. Yeah, me and a few others were saying the opposite or like this is for sure going to be in place in 2026 and ultimately there there were no prominent legal challenges to it, right And I. Speaker 2 Think yeah, None. None at all. Speaker 1 I know, I know folks explored it. I know there were some pretty serious litigators out there who explored it. I, I had heard that getting plank this was a, was a bit of a challenge because this rule, doesn't it, it, it definitely hurts some, but it doesn't it, it actually helps a lot of prominent companies as well. But but where, where do you think the, the winds are with this $100,000 fee right now? Because my take away from reading your reporting on both of those hearings is like, they both seem very cluttered. I would say like it, it didn't seem like there was a, there was a, a very like very clear arguments made on either side, not like to, you know, to, to, to bash the, the, the lawyers on either side. But it just it, it seemed like your and others tellings of the hearings. Is that like the judges were quite confused coming out of it? Speaker 2 I yeah, I, I do think I do think the judges were kind of struggling a little bit like even that got to clearly spent, you know, some time done the work starting this issue still still struggling to wrap their arms around the issue. And I think especially that that DC Circuit hearing felt like kind of esoteric in, in, in parts. I, I don't, I, I didn't come away with like a, a strong impression that really any member of, of that panel was going to rule one one way or another necessarily with which was not the case after that hearing at the DC District Court. I, I guess what, what's, what, what an interesting that did come out of these debates is, is DOJ and, and USCIS did DOJ in, in these court hearings and then in, in subsequent sworn filings, the government's actually shared data on how many Oh yeah, fees been paid so far. And pretty initially it was, it was 70. It was a number shared in that February court hearing. Latest number was was 85. And, and the, the, the point being for the government was, well, actually we're, we're taking in much less revenue from from this fee from it. It would be petitions with this fee than than we would otherwise. So I, I, I thought that was a, you know, pretty, pretty notable aspect of of the cases. And, and I, you know, the, the government, that, and the plaintiffs have pretty divergent views on the significance of that. I, I, I think the, the folks challenging the fee will say, well, it doesn't matter if a tax is generating A substantial revenue or not, it's still a, still a tax. And that's. Speaker 1 Still, you know, surfing the authority of Congress basically. Yeah. It's that that number. That's what the best part of, I mean for for me at least of this litigation, these these types of hearings is that like information like that finally has to come out, which is OK. 85 you know, companies have paid the $100,000 fee on behalf of their which which is honestly more than I would have thought to. Speaker 2 Be frank and and these these are these are cap exempt employers. So so number could be, you know, quite a bit higher after the. Speaker 1 Oh OK, so they were only citing the cap exempt employers. Speaker 2 Yeah, 'cause I, I guess if, if you're, if you're capped subject, you haven't even had the opportunity to pay the pay the fee yet. So that's, that's probably another, another reason why that that number is, is pretty, pretty low. Although, yeah, I'm, I'm also quite curious about, yeah, who's, who's reaching into their wallet to, to fork over that, that money for an H1B petition right now. Speaker 1 For a for a temporary visa is the is the the crux of it. It's $100,000 for a temporary visa. Oh yeah, sure. It's dual intent, but still it's, it's it's quite, quite interesting. The $100k Fee's Future and H1B Program Transformation Yeah. Well, that's, that's all really insightful. Do you have a have any sense of sort of the, the next steps on either one of those cases or any of the other cases that are on the ether? I know there's the, the, the, the states that, you know, came together, a coalition of states that came together. Any any sort of sense of what the when we might hear updates from any of these cases next? Speaker 2 So that that case in in Boston is actually led by Massachusetts and and California that the AGS in those States and and there were a number of other Democrat LED states that that signed on. There's there's been a motion for summary judgment, no hearing scheduled in the, in the other other cases that that are further along that there, there was another development after the hearings involving this, this decision of the night circuit over refugee admissions and, and that that that one went in the favor of, of the government. Basically the court found us was at the, I believe at the preliminary stage, although it's been a, it's been a couple of weeks now, basically endorsed their, their arguments citing A-212-F of, of the INA, which is the key provision they're they're using to justify the H1B fee. So, so there were, there were supplemental filings on the, on the Supreme Court decision on the, on the tariffs and then there were additional filings on this refugee admissions case called Pesito. So you have a whole lot of these additional elements that that aren't even like directly connected to H1 BS being introduced into these cases that could maybe sway the judges one one way or another. Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll be closely following your reporting as you as you track and seek out updates on that. Anything else you want to cover on the $100,000 fee that's been sticking out to you? Any, any sources you've been talking to that, you know, said anything that have surprised you or is this just sort of moving, you know, at the pace that everyone expected when the proclamation came out at the end of September? Speaker 2 You know, I, I, I don't know if maybe everyone expected this thing to, to be in place for, for the selection process. And like, like, like you said, there were a lot of, lot of attorneys last year who, who said this, this weighted selection wouldn't survive. And, and, and yet, you know, so many months later, here we are. And, and the, the framework that this administration wanted in place is the reality. So the the court battle goes on, but we're going to get a, a pretty good test soon, kind of a, a natural experiment of, of what is the, what is the distribution of the H1B talent pool look like with this, this new, new framework. And I'm, I'm going to be interested in, in particular on, in, you know, how, how does it affect the hiring and recruiting pipeline of the, the big like IT consulting firms, the, you know, going to quote outsourcers, cognizant folks of in, in that vein, who, who were big, big sponsors of workers that, that would have been subject to the, the fee in, in past years. Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, and to who we should point out too, because this is all publicly available information with the Department of Labor LCA data, many of those companies contract the H1B employees that they have out to major American tech companies as well. So that's, you know, those, those companies reducing the overall number of H1B employees that they sponsor will cut into the H1B workforce of some, some, some big, some, some other big companies that, that we all would know, recognize that's, that's not at all the entirety of those companies sort of H1B sponsorship programs. That's in, in many cases just like a, a small slice of it. But it's still, you know, one of the, one of the impacts of the $100,000 fee rule in particular. And then we'll, we'll, like you said, we'll really see how the weighted lottery shakes out, who the winners and losers are. We've had some pretty clear ideas about that, but we'll talk more about that once the once we have more preliminary results. But for sure, I think it's there's there's no, there's there's no doubt that in the 1st 15 months of the Trump administration, they have reshaped the H1B program in a way that and, and to a scale that I don't think has happened since like really the tech boom started to occur in like the mid early, early to mid twenty 10s when the H1B became an extremely popular pathway for companies, especially large tech companies, to grow and scale their workforces. And that was happening more on the market side. And USCIS was reacting to it at the time. But this now the last year, yeah, some of it's the market, but a lot of it is these these, these changes that the Trump administration is making to the overall H1B program from many different angles is changing it at its core. New DOL Rule to Significantly Increase H1B Wage Floors And one of the biggest ones is, and we can, we can talk about this next. One of the biggest ones is, is a Department of Labor rule that just cleared White House review and it's titled improving wage protections for H1B and perm Employment in the United States. It cleared our review on February 20th, Andrew, as I know you reported and or maybe it was a couple days later, end of February, it cleared our review and now we're waiting for the full text of the rule to come out. It is largely expected that it will the the rule will look very similar to its 2021 counterpart that the Trump administration did did push through before they they left office in January of 2021. That will increase the prevailing wage floors for levels one through 4 for H1B employees by anywhere between like 15 and 2020 223%. So in in real world terms, like the actual salaries that employers will be required to pay H1B employees and put into the perm applications for for green card sponsorship could increase by 20 to 35% depending on what type of special occupation code the employee has and where they're located. We did a session, I, Andrew and I were talking about this off the recording before we started lawfully did a session for our customers yesterday with a guy named Don Harrison, who was the acting administrator of the wage and hour division at DOL during the first year of the Trump administration. He recently left talking about what what what is likely to be in that role once it comes out. I'm going to release like a 5 or like 10 minutes snippet of that conversation on the podcast feed, I think next week. So if you're not a lawfully customer, you'll get a little bit of that conversation. But if you want to hear the whole thing and, and, and get all the insights from that conversation, you can, you can reach out, you can become a subscriber and you'll get access to the recording. So, so, so on that. But Andrew, have you, have you done much reporting on on this rule in particular yet other than sort of the it's sort of operational movement through, through the regulatory process or are you sort of waiting for the text to come out and then you'll go to your sources and, and, and see what the reaction is? Yeah. I mean honestly a lot of payments been been sucked up by the the fee litigation and and illegal fights over temporary protected status programs. Speaker 2 Like that. But yeah, I've I've done, I've I've I've take a look at, you know, what this rule looked like in in Trump won this, this isn't, you know, a brand new idea. They've they've tried it before, just like they they plan to do a a lot a weighted lottery rule and and Trump won and weren't weren't able to finalize either. But there's there's probably like like like you said, pretty, pretty good chance this is in line with with with that previous proposal that was. That was bought by the courts and you know, this this is we're we're at the proposed rule stage. So we'll we'll have a a public comment period and that that the agency will have to, you know, deal with and then and then issue that the final rule incorporating that that feedback. So some what's what's down the line, It'll it'll, you know, most likely if, if it survives litigation be in place for the next lottery cycle, I guess for these these caps out at H1 BS. But yeah, I guess bottom line is like you have all these changes happening, you know, different, different agencies, different, you know, sort of aspects of the H1B program. It's just becoming a heck of a lot more expensive to use for, for the employer. So if, if you're not, if, if, if you're not someone hiring a really highly paid employee, it's, it's, it's becoming harder to win the lottery. And, and then you have to make that calculation. You know, if they're outside the country, they want to pay this big fee and, and you know, down the line now or are we, are we going to pay these, these new prevailing wage rates that that DOL is, is imposing? Speaker 1 Yeah. Testing the Assumption of an Untapped American STEM Workforce And the and the time that you just mentioned is, is, is important and I want to note that. But before that, too, similar, similarly to the weighted lottery rule, like you said, that this is sort of a very likely to be a recycled version of what was introduced at the very end of the last Trump administration. And like with the weighted lottery rule, I've been told that the lawyers inside of DOL and inside the Trump administration have made sure to make this version more durable to litigation. And so again, I would, I would caution anyone who starts to starts hearing like, oh, when the rule comes out, like, oh, you can disregard that. It'll get challenged in the court and it'll get struck down because it's bogus to try and raise these wages so much higher than what you know, a, a normal US worker would get paid for that same job. So, so don't worry about it. I'd caution you to, to, to believe that fully because like Andrew just said, like depending on, on when the proposed rule comes out and how, how ambitious DOL is in terms of going through the public comment. So if you do the public comments amending the rule and, and and putting the final rule out, this could be in place right by early to mid 2027 and certainly be another layer, another factor in the now the the new weighted laundry system, which is it now costs $50,000 more potentially to get your software developer from Level 3 to level 4, right, If that's how much more you have to pay them in the salary, so. Speaker 2 You, you were talking earlier about paying, paying a worker like in Silicon Valley or, or wherever maybe your, your tech firm is located. Just just give them a salary to bump them into level 4. But you, you, you do wonder at some point with all these changes to H1B, like, man, how, how much are you paying an H1B worker versus a, you know, U.S. citizen doing the same role, the same job? Speaker 1 Yeah, it was if they could, if these companies can find those right individuals as well. Like that's the that's the that's the challenge that some of these companies are going to be up against is like the Trump administration is certainly like making a bet and they and there are the leadership around immigration inside of that administration. Like fervishly believes that fervishly, fervently. I don't know what it's, it's a Thursday one one of those maybe both believes believes that that there is an untapped American STEM workforce that these companies are overlooking in in instead hiring H1B employees because they're less expensive, right? That is, that is without a doubt the belief of many of the leaders inside of the Trump administration who are making and pushing these policies forward at the OLUSCIS, etcetera. Whether or not that's actually true on the grounds if this, if this rule goes through, we're going to find out. Because the difference between the weighted lottery rule and its impact in this one is that all your, if you're a company and you sponsor 1000 H-1B employees, maybe the weighted lottery rule in the $100,000 fee means that over the course of the next few years, you're going to sponsor fewer, right? Because now it's more difficult to secure an H1B lottery selection. Or you might you have to pay, you have to pay individuals more to, to increase the odds. Or if you're recruiting from overseas, the $100,000 fee just sort of closes the door on that one. For most of the population you're recruiting, this DOL rule would impact your entire H1B workforce within about one to two years. Because as soon as you extend that person's H1B and have to file a new LCA for them, you're now required to pay the, the, the higher fee, whatever it is, right? And again, in many cases it's, it's 152030 even $50,000 more for somebody whose, whose role doesn't change, whose responsibilities doesn't change, whose location doesn't change, but the, but the salaries need to be increased. And this is the other thing getting a little bit speculative here, but the, there was a lot of, I, I know a lot of companies were like exploring the concept of, of relocating H1B employees to, to locations where, you know, the, the required salary is a little bit lower. For example, Omaha, NE software developer, the preventing wage, the real, the real salary for the preventing wage level is much lower than it is in San Francisco. So if you're a company and you have an office in Nebraska, maybe you can just relocate some of your software dev teams there, right? Who are H1B workers. You could do some of that, you know, to, to, to mitigate your, the, the cost increases from, from this DOL rule. But no matter what, the, the salary floors will go up across the board for every H1B employee, regardless of where where they're located. And that can really drive down through the incentive structure, the demand for H1 BS and the number of H1B employees who actually stay in the country right now, it's quite common. Andrews you know, like once somebody secures an H1B, they're not, they're, they're staying on H1B until they can get into the green card process and hopefully get their green card approved. With the, with the amount of layoffs that are happening, like there, there could be a huge swath of H1B employees who aren't able to stay in the US any longer and return to wherever their home country is. And we're already seeing that. Sorry, sorry. Last thing Andrew, we're already seeing that a little bit. The latest DOL data came out of the latest LCA data came out for Q4 of 2025 S October to December of 2025. And there was about a 25% year over year decrease in the number of certified LC as and some people might think like, oh, that's because of the government shutdown. It's not. There weren't certified LC as in October, but those were all made-up a four in November. That was a real market, a real decrease in in the demand of the number of LC as being filed of about 25% year over year. So we're already starting to see some of the some of the market decrease in demand as a result of these policies. Texas and Florida Restrict H1B Use in Public Institutions Yeah, and, and, and you mentioned, you mentioned this assumption that's yeah, they're pretty, pretty baked into almost all the administration's policies, immigration that, you know, there there's a, a talent pool of American workers that's, that's ready to step in and fill these jobs if these H1B workers weren't, weren't available. And you know, we're, we're, we're, we're actually, we're going to see that tested pretty pretty soon here in, in Texas and, and Florida where the, the governors in those states have right, you know, effectively blocked public universities in the case of Florida and in case of Texas, any, any state agency from filing new H1B petitions unless they get some special exception. So you're going to, you're going to see that hit research universities, big, big university affiliated medical centers, teaching hospitals pretty soon. So we're, we're we're going to get a sense of, you know, are, are, are there is, is there an, an American workforce that's, you know, ready and willing to step into these jobs? Or are we just going to see a, a, a pretty big squeeze on, on the healthcare workforce in, in these states for one? Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And we're kind of coming up on time here. Maybe we'll just save this for a future episode. But we talked about it before we started recording. There's a whole sort of political realignment and sort of surge around the H1B program, primarily from the right. I don't hear the left talk about it too, too much, but primarily from Republican lawmakers and Republican candidates. You know who, who are at the very least like believers in restricting the H1B program as it currently exists, if not outright eliminating it and for many of the same reasons that you that you just outlined there, right? And we've talked about that these it's an it's an argument that's been around since the introduction of the program, right, that these are these are these visas are are incentivizing companies to to take jobs from qualified American workers in order to pay, you know, these age would be individuals less to do the same job. So, you know, we're seeing a heating up of that discussion politically, whether or not that transfer that that transfers into policy, we'll see. But again, maybe that's a, that's a topic for another time because it could, it could put us into a, a whole another hour long discussion. Supreme Court to Hear Cases with Major TPS Implications Andrew, anything, anything you're working on in the next couple of weeks. And I think you're keeping a close eye on that. You think our listeners should keep a close eye on too? Speaker 2 Well, this isn't H1B related, but the Supreme Court is is going to be considering some a couple cases with big implications for employers of of foreign workers next month. The there there's a couple of TPS temporary protected status. It challenges Trump administration efforts to, you know, void void those those protections for 350,000 something Haitians, several thousand Syrians were blocked by lower courts. So now, now DHS is the Trump administration has has gone to the Supreme Court and said, hey, we think you should lift these orders and actually you should tell lower courts they they don't have any jurisdiction to review decisions on this program. So decisions decision to the court there that the hearing apparently is going to be in April. We'll have a pretty have pretty big implications for a whole lot of vulnerable people here could could possibly have implications for other APA challenges to. Speaker 1 Immigrations as well. That's a that's, that's a big one. Any sense of, I mean, not not at all my area of expertise to take it with a big grain of salt. That's just the way you describe that case. It feels like, you know, the makeup of the Supreme Court right now would side with the Trump administration on that One of like these are federal, these are federal regulations. These are federal programs. The Fed the the the the highest federal court in the land has say over you know how these what the executive branch can and can't do on this and lower level courts don't like that. That's again, big grain of salt because not my area of expertise, but that's what it feels like. What are what's your take on it on where that one might land? Speaker 2 Well, I mean, we, we saw the Supreme Court last year issue a couple orders letting the Trump administration, you know, go ahead and strip status, deport several thousand people from Venezuela, even though the government had lost at the preliminary stage and then on the merits at, at lower court. So I, I guess that's, that's not a great sign for plaintiffs, but you know, perhaps more of the more of the record of, of the case, what more, more of the, the, the evidence, what will be considered by the, by the court this time versus just issuing, you know, A1 paragraph opinion on, on the on opinion, what one paragraph decision on, on the emergency docket. But but that, that would, that would be a pretty, pretty big shift for, for this court to endorse to, to say that, you know, folks can cannot even challenge a legally deficient process for, for making these, these terminations. It's kind of the whole, the whole point, as some, you know, legal experts have pointed out to me at the TPS statute is, is there is supposed to be a, a clear objective process in place here for the, the government to, to follow. So we'll see what happens in a in a few weeks there. Andrew Kreighbaum's Reporting and Episode Wrap-Up Very interesting. Well, Andrew, I, I, I doubt there are many listeners to this podcast, newer or returning who, who don't know where to follow you. But in case there's a few, where, where do they follow your reporting? Where do they follow your work? Where do they follow updates from you? Speaker 2 I'm I'm on I'm on Twitter X blue sky, but you know, I'm, I'm, I'm posting, you know, most, most regularly on on LinkedIn. So look me up there for sure and love to hear from folks practicing about what, what, what the developments they're they're seeing in these areas. It's always so so definitely reach out as well. Speaker 1 Yeah, the on the ground stuff is, is always very interesting because even a lot of the, the trends in the data that we track it lawfully, we don't know where to look until we start hearing, you know, from, from immigration attorneys and immigration practitioners who were like, I'm seeing a lot of this new thing that's weird. And you know, that can, that can that can spiral, as you all know, into a, into a whole, you know, big story that that's not covered. So definitely reach out to Andrew if, if, if, if you're seeing anything like that. All right, Andrew, Well, I appreciate you doing this. We got to keep doing it every every like month or two to just chop it up because there's so much immigration news. You, you cover it all and you, you really have a good, your finger on the pulse of, of a wide range of topics. I know we covered primarily H1 BS today, but there's certainly going to be other developments in other areas of immigration of the future that we want to have you back on to talk through. So thanks again, man. I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Speaker 2 Yeah, thanks for having me. Speaker 1 All right, see you next time, everyone. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Real Time Immigration. If you're an immigration attorney, operations leader, or HR or mobility leader interested in making your case process more efficient, reach out to me on LinkedIn or on my e-mail in the description. We'll see you next time.