H-1B Fee Increase, Visa Revocations & F-1 Student Changes

Transcript:

Well, if you’ve been following the news over the last several months, in particular the last several weeks, you might be thinking, “Is my visa about to revoked? Is it, is it going to cost $100,000 to obtain an H-1B visa?” Or, “Can I even still come to the US as an international student?” Well, that’s what we’re going to be covering today. I’m Gabriella Agostinelli with Berardi Immigration Law. Thank you for joining. So let’s dive right in.

In terms of visa revocations, there’s been 2 pieces of information that the government has come out with on this in the last couple of weeks. Number one, the government has indicated that over the last several months, it has now already revoked 175,000 visas for individuals expanding all sorts of visa categories, where it has been shown that they have somehow violated their status, they are engaged in fraudulent or misrepresentation of their activities, they have engaged in illegal or criminal behaviors, and the government said, “That’s it.

You’re done. You’re out. We’re pulling your visa.” So that’s the first batch the government has announced. The second one that we’ve heard about, especially more recently, is that the government is planning on pulling the visitor visas, that’s B-1/B-2, for at least 200,000 individuals who came to the US as visitors and who thereafter applied for asylum. The government is saying, “Hey, you misrepresented yourself.

You said you were just coming as a visitor, but then you turned around and filed for asylum, and that’s an incongruence between your stated intent and what you thereafter did after coming into the United States, which was apply for asylum, which is to say, ‘I want to stay here permanently.'” before we freak out about this, let’s just take a step back at what it means to actually have a visa revoked, and what is a visa itself? Well, a visa is nothing more than a travel document.

A visa, in most cases, does not grant you status. It is merely the document you carry to the border to be readmitted to the United States with. So if you are already here in the United States and the government has revoked your visa, is it a problem if you want to leave the country and come back? Yes, that’s a problem, because you need a visa for re-entry to the United States.

But if you are already here in the United States and your visa gets revoked, well, that does not affect your status. It does not mean you have to leave the country. It does not mean that you are in immediate threat of deportation. It just means that once you do leave the country, you will be impacted.

But let’s break this down, especially for those who are asylees. They’re not trying to leave the country. Most of them are not trying to leave the country and cannot leave the country as a part of their application process. So this is another example, you guys, of the chilling effect of all of these headlines on immigration.

There’s no real practical effect to a lot of these changes, but it’s the news bite, it’s the headline that makes people scratch their heads and think, “Eh, maybe coming to the US is just not for me,” or, “Mm, maybe my case is not going to be successful because they’re trying to make everything harder.” But I caution you to not really think that far and instead to just tell yourself, “Stay calm. Let’s assess the situation.

Let’s see what’s happening.” But as a practical piece of advice, one of the top things you can do if you are at all concerned about this is monitor the email address that you used on your DS-160 and visa application to see if you have received any communication from consulates, embassies or the State Department.

And before you travel, I want you to double-check that you have, double-check your visa status if your, there has been any arrests or conviction on your record in any kind of way, or any kind of prior allegation of fraud or misrepresentation. And of course, check with your lawyer before you leave the So the next group of individuals who have been worried and concerned and confused is H-1B holders.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’re suffering intense whiplash from the back and forth, back and forth, back and forth volleyball, volleyballing of what is the status of this $100,000 fee rule? Now let’s back up. So in September 2025, a year ago now, the Trump administration came out with a rule that said if you are applying for a new H-1B visa, or new H-1B status in the United States, to be more accurate, then your employer’s going to have to pay an additional $100,000 fee to submit your application.

Now, at the time it was true for both individuals who already held H-1B status but were applying for a work permit from outside the United States, or also those who were applying for their first H-1B visa through the cap or lottery process.

Now, there has been a series of litigation up and down, up and down, up and down constantly, and at the current point in time, the rule has been knocked out. A, a court has said, “We’re done with this.” So you know what the Trump administration did? They came back and they said, “Okay, you didn’t like the rule last time,” or, “You didn’t like this, this last minute, 5:00 on Friday dropping of a bomb on all practitioners and all H-1B employers and employees about What would happen with this fee?

So instead, they’re going to do what the court said you have to do, which is to go through the typical notice of rulemaking process. So you have to put, , in the Federal Register your official proposal to change a rule or to create a rule, and then you have to give the public a period of time to come back and to explain their own feelings and thoughts on this is to get that comment, to get that feedback, to understand, you know, any kind of issues that the public has with this proposed rule.

At which point, the government can then take as little or as much of that feedback to create a final rule. So it’s important to say that right now as it stands, there is a proposed rule that will increase the fee to just a little bit over $103,000 per application. And at that point, what would happen is anybody who is applying for a first-time H-1B status grant, so this is what we call the Cap H.

These are people who go into the lottery. If you go into the lottery, and your case has been selected, and you can proceed to filing that first-time H-1B petition, in that case, that H-1B fee would be applied. Now, this would be, and applied in addition to the existing fees, which are thousands of dollars of fees to begin with. And it would be due at the time that the H-1B petition is filed, not at the time of putting your name in the lottery, but at the time that you’re, you’ve been selected and are now ready to file the petition.

So what’s an important thing you need to know about this, you guys? It’s proposed. It’s not set in stone. It’s not for sure going to happen. Might it come through? Yes. But will it still be subject to litigation thereafter? Probably, because it’s such a high and egregious amount. Needless to say, we’re tracking this one closely.

And if you’re an employer now, can you file without the fee? Yes, you can. But this is always subject to change in the future, and as an employer who is trying to budget these type of things out, it becomes a little bit more precarious where you don’t know if maybe now you can get somebody in the door for the typical H-1B fees, but will it change in the future? We don’t know.

So this is one that everyone’s got to follow closely. I would say we are definitely not out of the woods, and this is just going to ultimately be up to the people and the courts to decide what’s actually going to happen here. So our last topic to talk about has been a pretty big one. This has been a big summer for F-1 students.

F-1 is the visa category for individuals who are international students here in the United States. Now, the government came out earlier this summer and finalized another rule that was previously proposed, talking about how they are going to change a bit about the admission procedures for foreign students and actually other classes of individuals as well. But for the purposes of this conversation, we’ll focus on the F-1 students.

So historically, students have always been admitted for a period called duration of status. D/S was always put on their admission record, and it was basically understood as students would be admitted to the United States for D/S for the lifetime of their F-1 status, which includes not only the time that they are attending their program and completing the academic portion of that, also the up to 3 years in some cases of work authorization that individuals get following their graduation.

And this was very convenient for individuals and for practitioners because throughout this period of time, and for some people, depending on what level of education you were receiving. if you were, you came here for 4 years of undergrad and received a PhD, you might be in the United States for upwards of 10 years in D/S admission period, which made it helpful and convenient to change from one education level to the other without having to file substantial paperwork.

But the Trump administration said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There’s too much fraud. There’s too many violations of status. There’s too many people who just use this D/S, and then thereafter do whatever they want. They stop attending studies. They’re not really There’s really no way to monitor the activity of these students other than ensuring that the universities that they go to are actively updating their status appropriately, which may not always happen.” So the, the Trump administration said from going forward, if you’re an international student, you are now only going to be admitted to the United States through the length of your program not to exceed 4 years.

And if you are one of those individuals who pro- whose program exceeds 4 years, or if you are doing the post-graduate work authorization, then you’re going to have to file an additional form with the government called I-539, which is an application to extend your status. You file this with US Citizenship and Immigration Service.

It costs $470. Now, students who are graduating and who are applying for work authorization would already have been filing some paperwork. They call it the form I-765 Application for Work Authorization. Now, those students who are looking to extend their stay beyond 4 years are going to have to be submitting these as well.

Now, what happens if you’re already in the United States as of the date this becomes effective, which is September 15th, and you are in D/S? Do you automatically have to go and file new paperwork? No, you do not. There are transition rules that the Trump administration has imposed that make it so that there will be a more phased out approach to those individuals who are already here in D/S.

But any student after September 15th who leaves the country and comes back to the United States will be admitted through the duration of the program on form I-20, which is the school’s form that designates that they have been, the student has been accepted to the program and is holding F-1 status it, for that particular academic program at that university.

One more thing, and apologies, for anybody who is a student in the United States, in addition to the changes I just talked about, there’s one, there’s actually a couple other changes. One is that previously, when a student had finished their program, they had 60 days to either change their status or to depart the United States.

The government changed that rule down to a 30-day grace period from a 60-day grace period to either change their status or depart the United States. Additionally, there are some other rules about how soon and, and how often you can change your academic program once you’re already here, and whether you can continue to repeat the same academic level.

So in the past, if you wanted to complete 2 different master’s degree one after the other, that was fine. Now, you have one chance to complete one level of degree, at which time you will either depart the United States upon completion or you will have to graduate to a higher academic level in order to remain in the United States if you don’t already have an independent grant of work authorization or independent sponsorship through an employer.

So if you’re an international student, what are some things you should be doing now? Well, number one, review your I-94. Review your most recent admission period to understand where, w- how long you have been admitted to the United States for. Are you D/S, or if this is after September 15th and you travel, when have you been admitted through?

You want to make sure your I-20 forms are all updated and accurate. You want to make sure that you are keeping on top of all of your work authorization dates, and you want to stay on top of renewals early and often. If you are in a period of postgraduate work authorization for that one-year period that all students get called OPT, Optional Practical Training, and you now need to switch over to STEM OPT, you want to start that process well in advance, okay? You want to stay on top of everything.

You also want to stay open, have an open line of communication with your DSO, your Designated School Official. So if you are feeling anxious about these changing rules, please utilize this office to go back and to help them help you maintain your status in the United States.

You also want to obtain legal advice before you leave the United States to understand what kind of visas or what kind of knowledge you need to have before you reenter the United States. And again, coordinate early if you have a potential sponsorship opportunity for H-1B or some other status. Well in advance of the expiration of your status, reach out to your employer, reach out to your counsel to understand the next steps on that.

Now, if you’re an employer, there’s also some things you have to do. Now more than ever, track the I-94 expirations for your people, especially if they are here in F-1 status. You should build reminders well before expiration. You should coordinate with, you know, there should be a constant coordination between HR, lawyer and the student to make sure, and the school, to make sure that we are all dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s.

And if there’s any issue, escalate it immediately. It only gets worse the longer you wait when you have questions on these kinds of things. So the earlier you can identify issues, the better. So there is a lot going on right now in immigration as there have been for quite some time now.

But the most important thing, you guys, do not panic. Most of the time things will be okay, but you have to stay on top of everything that’s going on right now because these little changes and tweaks can add up and can change what your landscape is for your status in the United States. And of course, if you ever have any questions or concerns, please reach out to Berardi Immigration Law.

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