President Donald Trump has extended through September 2027 a requirement that employers make a $100,000 payment for certain H-1B petitions involving foreign workers seeking admission to the United States, even as federal courts continue reviewing challenges to the policy.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.

President Donald Trump has extended for another year his administration’s $100,000 payment requirement for certain H-1B foreign-worker petitions, keeping the restriction in place through Sept. 21, 2027, while its legality remains contested in two federal appeals courts.

The new presidential proclamation, issued Friday, extends a policy Trump originally imposed in September 2025. The requirement applies to certain H-1B workers who are outside the United States and must seek admission to effectuate approval of their petitions. Employers sponsoring workers covered by the proclamation generally must accompany or supplement those petitions with a $100,000 payment.

The extension preserves the policy for 12 additional months beyond its scheduled expiration this September.

Under the proclamation, the Department of Homeland Security is directed to restrict decisions on covered petitions that do not include the $100,000 payment. The policy includes an exception allowing the homeland security secretary to waive the requirement for an individual worker, a company or an industry when the secretary determines the employment is in the national interest and does not threaten U.S. security or welfare.

The H-1B program allows American employers to temporarily hire foreign nationals for specialty occupations requiring highly specialized knowledge, including jobs throughout the technology, engineering and other professional sectors.

Congress created the modern H-1B program through the Immigration Act of 1990. Technology companies have become some of its largest users, with substantial numbers of workers coming from India and China.

Trump’s administration has argued that the program has been used by some employers to replace American workers with lower-paid foreign labor rather than filling jobs for which qualified domestic workers cannot be found.

In Friday’s proclamation, the White House said the conditions that prompted the original restriction remain in place, asserting that some information technology staffing and outsourcing companies have used H-1B workers in ways that suppress wages and displace American employees. Those assertions represent the administration’s stated justification for extending the policy.

Employers and business organizations challenging the requirement have presented a different argument, maintaining that H-1B workers provide specialized skills that American companies sometimes struggle to find domestically and that substantially raising the cost of sponsorship could make it more difficult for U.S. companies to recruit those workers.

The $100,000 requirement is substantially higher than the several thousand dollars in fees typically associated with an H-1B petition before Trump imposed the additional payment in 2025.

Its legal status remains unresolved.

In June, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston ruled that the administration lacked legal authority to impose the $100,000 requirement in a lawsuit brought by 20 states. Sorokin concluded that the payment operated as an unauthorized tax and ordered the federal government to stop collecting it.

The administration appealed.

On July 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to stay the lower court’s judgment while the appeal proceeds. The appellate court’s order described the underlying district court decision as having vacated actions by the Department of Homeland Security and State Department implementing the $100,000 H-1B payment requirement.

The First Circuit is now reviewing that case.

A separate challenge has produced a different result in Washington.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Association of American Universities challenged the 2025 proclamation in federal court, arguing that Trump exceeded his immigration authority by imposing the additional payment.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell rejected that challenge in December 2025. Howell concluded that the restriction fell within the president’s broad statutory authority to regulate the entry of foreign nationals into the United States.

The Chamber and other challengers appealed, leaving the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to consider whether Howell properly rejected the case. The appeals court agreed earlier this year to accelerate consideration of the dispute.

The competing cases have therefore produced different district court conclusions about the president’s authority to impose the payment, with the appellate litigation continuing as Trump extends the underlying proclamation.

The restriction is aimed principally at new H-1B workers outside the United States who require admission to begin employment under an approved petition. The administration previously clarified that the payment was prospective and did not generally apply simply because an existing H-1B holder traveled internationally or sought a routine renewal.

That distinction is significant because the H-1B program is deeply embedded in the recruitment strategies of technology companies and other employers seeking workers with advanced technical skills.

Critics of the program have argued for years that some companies use H-1B sponsorship to obtain foreign workers at lower costs while American employees are available for the same jobs. Business groups counter that the visa provides access to highly skilled professionals necessary to fill shortages in specialized fields and helps U.S. companies remain competitive.

Changes to H-1B costs, screening and processing have already begun affecting corporate planning, according to Reuters. Some companies that rely heavily on the program have reconsidered where they locate jobs and expand operations, with Google parent Alphabet among major technology companies increasing activity in India as U.S. immigration rules become more restrictive.

Trump’s extension means the administration intends for the $100,000 requirement to remain in effect until 12:00 a.m. EDT on Sept. 21, 2027, unless it is halted through litigation or changed through further executive or regulatory action.

The proclamation also directs the secretaries of State, Labor and Homeland Security and the attorney general to evaluate the policy following the next H-1B lottery and recommend whether another extension would serve U.S. interests.

For employers seeking to bring covered H-1B workers into the country, the immediate result is another year of uncertainty surrounding a policy the White House intends to maintain but whose ultimate legality remains before the federal appellate courts.

Original article