One month after issuing a Proclamation entitled “Restrictions on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers” that imposed a $100,000 fee for certain H-1B visa petitions, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published clarifying updates that echo similar updates from other agencies. The USCIS update is available HERE under the drop-down “Presidential Proclamation on Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers.”
The largest clarification is that the fee will not apply to petitions filed as a change of status or extension or amendment of stay for individuals already present in the U.S. That means no F-1 students seeking to change to H-1B status after graduation will be subject to the fee unless they are found to be ineligible for a change of status due to some prior immigration problem (e.g., failure to maintain status). Since the majority of first-time H-1B petitions in each annual lottery are for students, the Proclamation will not have as large an impact as its plain language originally suggested.
This narrowing of the Proclamation’s scope is likely due to the need to base the Proclamation’s legal grounds on the president’s broad powers to control the entry of foreign nationals, and not his more limited ability to control those already within the US.
Relevant points in the USCIS update:
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