What happens when one president can rewrite America’s immigration system with just a few strokes of a pen?

In this episode of Immigration Weekly, Rosanna pulls back the curtain on the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration changes – from “invasion” declarations and billion-dollar border bills to the jaw-dropping $100,000 H-1B visa fee.

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Transcript

Everyone’s talking about U.S. immigration law, but nobody really knows how it works. I’m Rosanna Berardi. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, a former immigration inspector at the border, university professor, and founder and managing partner of Berardi Immigration Law.

I’ve done nothing but U.S. immigration law for over 30 years, and it’s time to stop the misinformation on all sides. I’m going to tell you how it all works, the inside story. This is Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to Immigration Weekly with yours truly, Rosanna Berardi. Today, we’re going to talk about three things President Trump has done with United States immigration law. We’re nine months into it, people.

Setting the Record Straight on U.S. Immigration

Seems like a lifetime, doesn’t it? We’re going to talk about three major things the Trump administration has done and why it’s so important to our U.S. immigration policy in general. These aren’t just little executive orders here and there.

There’s some big money and some big language that’s been floating around since January of 2025. So let’s get started. January 20th, 25th, Inauguration Day, flags are flying.

You know what else happened that day? I was sitting in my family room like, OMG, watching the pen, the pen, signing, signing, signing, executive orders, throwing the pen out to the crowd like a rock star. What happened at the end of that first day?

10, count them, 10 immigration-related executive orders. I hate executive orders. What’s an executive order?

Executive order is a memo from the president saying, we’re going to do this because I want to. Why do I hate them? Because we live in a democracy.

And who should be directing policy, law, and guidance? Ding, ding, ding. Congress, Congress, Congress.

Executive orders, garbage. Every president uses them. Why?

Congress is dysfunctional and broken. So they take it into their own hands. However, we got 10 on the first day.

Ouch. The biggest one, you probably don’t even remember this because there’s been so much noise. There was an executive order calling and declaring that there was an invasion at the border and immediately revoking all of the Biden-era policies.

The language matters. Invasion was not randomly selected, was not just rhetoric. It is setting up the legal framework for everything else the administration does.

So day one, they’re architects of a new generation of immigration policy shifts, and they have set the stage by saying our country is being invaded. By doing that, that allows them to have a lot more wiggle room with some existing concepts in law. The second big thing that they did on inauguration day was bring back the remain in Mexico policy.

Now, what does this one mean and why is it important? Well, this during the Trump administration number one in 2016, this was when Trump said, hey, you want to apply for asylum at the U.S. southern border? Great.

Wait in Mexico while your case is pending. How long do cases pend? Years.

Why is this a big change? Because if you’re allowed in the U.S. while your case is pending, you can live here and work here until it’s being heard. Well, now the remain in Mexico policy is back.

You want to come and knock on the door for asylum saying it’s not safe for me to stay in my country? You can still do that, but you’re going to have to wait in Mexico. Why?

Well, think about the argument. I mean, many people who are seeking asylum are coming through many, many countries to get to the United States and a lot of policy makers and individuals and legal minds have said, hey, they went through 15 countries. Why did they not apply for asylum there?

Well, this is kind of an answer to that rhetorical question. You’re going to wait somewhere else besides the United States if you’re going to enter the United States for asylum purposes. So lots going on the first day.

Big stuff. Countries being invaded. Remain in Mexico if you’re waiting for asylum.

Temporary protected status. You guys, this is called TPS. Temporary protected status is for individuals from countries that have long-standing war-torn issues.

They can’t go back there. The government says it’s too dangerous to go back. Well, TPS under this administration has been dismantled.

It’s on again, off again. I will not bore you with the details of TPS, but to say it’s changed 10 times in the last nine months. So if you’re here on TPS or you know a loved one, make sure you’re getting proper legal counsel.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” and Massive Spending

Okay, so January 20th comes and goes. Lots of stuff trickling during that time, and then fast forward to the 4th of July. Remember that day?

You should, because while most Americans were eating hot dogs and hamburgers, President Trump was signing into law the one big beautiful bill. Wow, what a name. Interesting, funny, barely passed.

Vice President Vance had to cast the tying vote in the Senate. The House passed it. Lots and lots of arguing.

This bill, holy man, talk about spending money. For an administration that wants to cut costs, this thing surely was not the vehicle. Numbers are staggering.

The bill gives $170 billion towards immigration and border enforcement through September of 2029. That’s four years. $170 billion.

$45 billion for detention facilities. That’s huge. Almost $30 billion to ICE and deportation.

Wow, hiring more officers, transportation, removal operations, $46 billion to construct the wall. Remember the build the wall? Yeah, that’s still going on.

Lots of increased filing fees. Government added an extensive filing fee for asylum applicants, a visa integrity fee for all visa applicants coming to the United States. The one big beautiful bill also restricts federal benefits to people in the United States who are not here lawfully.

This one, holy man, a lot, a lot of money spent. Okay, so I really don’t think ICE needed billions and billions of dollars. What do I know?

But from my seat at the table, where I would have liked to seen a lot of money spent was in the immigration court system. There are currently almost 4 million cases backlogged. And the one big beautiful bill capped the number of immigration judges at 800.

Well, how are you ever going to resolve this problem and crisis? You need to get these cases moving. And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

You put one of the tech minds to this, the Amazons, the Metas, the Teslas, they would fix this immigration court system in a second. But the federal government spent a lot of money on detention and enforcement. Immigration courts still backlogged and they put a cap on immigration judges.

So people are just going to be sitting around waiting for a long time. Not a fan of this one. The one big beautiful bill, whew, a lot of money, in my opinion, spent in the wrong place.

The $100,000 H-1B Fee Shock

All right, then this bombshell. I’m eating dinner September 19th. It’s a Friday.

I’m tired. And with some friends I haven’t seen in a long time. And a text comes across my Apple Watch.

Before September 19th, people would say, Roseanne, it must be so hard to be an immigration lawyer under the Trump administration. And I would say, well, actually, it hasn’t been terrible. They really haven’t touched business immigration.

Well, boy, did that change on September 19th. Why? Because that is when President Trump issued that executive order saying, if you’re here in an H-1B or you want an H-1B, which is a visa or work permit for a person with a bachelor’s degree, you’re going to pay $100,000.

Never in the history of the world or America have we had a filing fee that cost $100,000. $100,000 that will go into effect on September 21st. Talk about no notice.

Right now, that fee is not in effect. Traditionally, fees for H-1Bs can be anywhere $5,000 to $7,000, $4,000 to $6,000, depends on the case type. But we’re talking $4,000 to $6,000 or $4,000 to $7,000 versus $100,000.

Now, the way that this was written was very sloppy. The government did not know what they were doing when they wrote this. They basically wrote it and said, if you are outside of the United States, you better get back home because upon entry on September 21st at midnight, we’re going to charge you $100,000.

So we scrambled. We were in the office all weekend. We were contacting clients.

It was a big mess. There was chaos. And oh, that Saturday around 4 p.m., President Trump came out and said, oh, immigration lawyers, corporate executives, fake news. They’re making this sound like something it’s not. You don’t have to be back in the U.S. This is only going to apply to new applications. Well, respectfully, President, that’s not what the order said.

Right now, today, October 2025, the $100,000 fee is not in effect. Why? Thank God for people in my profession that filed lawsuits.

Hospitals, health care agencies, institutions of higher ed, they all said, we are not going to pay $100,000 because you didn’t do this correctly. You spring it on us with no notice. We’re not sure if it applies to extensions, renewals, brand new applications.

But this is a huge one. This is President Trump striking at legal immigration. As clunky as our legal system is, the H-1B actually works.

There’s thousands of small businesses that rely on H-1B for staffing. Yes, the big tech players, NVIDIA, Google, Meta, Apple, they all use H-1Bs. Was this a message to them like, hey, knock it off, America first?

Maybe. The medical community was very vocal on this one. If you’ve gone to a hospital in the United States, foreign national physicians are the lifeblood of medical care in the US.

Whether you like that or not, it is true. And by penalizing hospitals and saying you’re going to have to pay $100,000 if you want a physician, it’s bad news. Now you’re going to say to me, hey, well, Rosanna, we should have Americans do that job.

That would be great, except there’s a shortage of Americans. There’s too many people that are sick and need health care and not enough providers, which is why we go to foreign labor. Trust me, as an immigration lawyer that has represented hospitals and health care institutions for the better part of 28 years, if hospitals could hire US workers to be physicians, they would all day long.

Now there’s legal challenges to this $100,000 fee. Hopefully a judge will issue an injunction, which is a timeout. So what has happened since January 2025?

Wrapping Up: The Message Behind the Moves

I’ll tell you what, I’m exhausted. Number one, day one, saw the 10 immigration-related executive orders. July 4th, 2025, the one big, beautiful bill, eek.

September 19th, the H-1B filing fee bombshell, $100,000. Here’s the thing, this is all messaging. And you know what the message is?

America’s closed. If you want to be here, it’s going to cost you a lot of money. If you want to be here, you’re going to have to wait your turn.

And, oh, by the way, we’re going to spend billions and billions of dollars to fix it. I’m skeptical. We’ll see what happens with the one big, beautiful bill.

But this is a lot of immigration news in nine short months. We’ve got three more years of this, and we’ll continue to keep you posted. If you like this episode, you’re like, wow, I learned a ton.

Please share it with your friends. Give us a five-star review if you feel that we’re warranted. And we will continue to keep you posted on Immigration Weekly with yours truly, Rosanna Berardi.

This was Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi. Thanks for joining. Be sure to connect with me, Rosanna Berardi, on LinkedIn, or go to our law firm at berardiimmigrationlaw.com.

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