The $100,000 H-1B Fee Is Blocked by Two Courts as Legal Immigration Shrinks: Refugee Cap 17,500, Travel Ban on 39 Countries

As of early October 2026, employers filing new H-1B visa petitions don’t have to pay the $100,000 fee the President imposed in September 2025. Two federal judges have blocked it.

On 8 June 2026 Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts vacated the fee in a case brought by 20 states, ruling that it is effectively a tax only Congress can levy, and arbitrary. The First Circuit refused to lift his ruling in July. Around 30 September, Judge Haywood Gilliam in California blocked USCIS and the State Department from enforcing it in a separate suit by unions, employers and nonprofits. A Washington district court had upheld the fee in December 2025 in a case brought by the US Chamber of Commerce, which is appealing. The administration has extended the fee to September 2027 and in August proposed making it permanent, at about $103,000.

The fee is the most visible piece of a broader effort to cut legal immigration, much of it done by proclamation.

How skilled visas changed

Alongside the fee, DHS rewrote the H-1B lottery. Under a final rule published at the end of 2025, registrations now get between one and four entries depending on the wage level offered, so higher-paid jobs are more likely to be picked. USCIS ran the first weighted selection on 31 March 2026 for the fiscal 2027 season.

The two changes push in the same direction: fewer H-1B workers, more of them in high-wage roles.

Refugees, travel bans and bonds

The refugee programme has shrunk to a sliver. The fiscal 2026 cap was set at 7,500, mainly for Afrikaners from South Africa, and raised to 17,500 in May. Admissions in fiscal 2026 were 16,292: 16,287 from South Africa and five from Afghanistan. The fiscal 2027 cap, signed on 25 September, is 17,500.

A travel ban that took effect in June 2025 fully barred 12 countries and partly barred seven. An expansion from January 2026 brought the list to 39 countries: 19 with full bans, among them Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, Somalia and Syria, plus Palestinian Authority documents, and 20 with partial bans, including Nigeria, Cuba and Venezuela.

The State Department also began requiring refundable visa bonds of $5,000 to $15,000 from visitors from a growing list of countries, starting with Malawi and Zambia in August 2025.

Students and the gold card

New student visas fell 23% in 2025 compared with 2024. F-1 visas, the main academic category, dropped by about a third, with Indian students down 57% and Chinese students 28%. The international educators’ association NAFSA forecasts up to 111,000 fewer international students in the 2026-27 academic year.

At the other end, the administration launched a “gold card” in December 2025: permanent residence for a $1 million gift, $2 million if a company sponsors, plus a $15,000 fee. In April 2026 the Commerce Secretary told Congress one card had been approved and hundreds were in the queue.

The economic question

Skilled immigration has been one of the few areas where both parties broadly agreed on the economics: high-skilled workers add to growth and tax revenue. The H-1B fee and the student visa decline cut into that pipeline, particularly in technology and research, at a time when the economy added only 29,000 jobs in September.

The courts are deciding the fee. Most of the rest, from the refugee cap to the travel ban, rests on presidential authority that courts have so far left largely in place.