DHS omitted describing key data in its immigration rule that showed filings for new H-1B petitions plunged after Trump officials introduced a $100,000 fee in Sept. 2025. DHS did not accurately portray information that appeared in a technical appendix , likely because it revealed that adding $103,265 in costs would cause employers to significantly reduce their use of H-1B visas and thereby render the revenue-raising estimates at the heart of the proposed rule implausible. In a social media post, Vice President JD Vance appeared to confirm what businesses and attorneys suspected: The purpose of the new immigration rule is to end employers’ use of the H-1B visa category.

H-1B temporary visas are often the only way for high-skilled foreign nationals to work in the United States long term. Employers must pay the higher of the actual or prevailing wage paid to U.S. professionals with similar experience and qualifications. A proposed rule may price many H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market by changing prevailing wage levels. Another upcoming rule may introduce additional H-1B restrictions. Companies recruiting at U.S. universities find that international students account for approximately 75% to 80% of full-time graduate students in AI-related fields, such as computer and information sciences.

On August 25, the Trump administration proposed a $103,265 tax on all petitions subject to the H-1B annual limit in an immigration rule . The rule was similar to a presidential proclamation in Sept. 2025 that imposed a $100,000 fee on the entry of new H-1B visa holders. In June, a federal judge struck down that fee, calling it an intrusion on Congress’s taxing authority.

The proposed rule is more expansive than the Sept. 2025 proclamation because the new $103,265 tax on H-1B petitions applies to individuals in or out of the United States. The Sept. 2025 proclamation only applied to new H-1B visa holders outside the United States. The H-1B annual limit is 65,000 plus a 20,000 exemption for foreign nationals with an advanced degree from a U.S. university.

The administration is attempting to justify the new rule under a novel theory: DHS has the authority to tax new H-1B visa holders to fund immigration services in several government agencies. The Trump administration stated in the Sept. 2025 presidential proclamation that the purpose of the $100,000 H-1B fee was to restrict the admission of H-1B visa holders. Vice President JD Vance made clear he believes the purpose of the proposed rule is the same as the Sept. 2025 proclamation: to prevent high-skilled foreign nationals from getting jobs in the United States. In response to an article about the proposed rule, Vance posted on X.com : “If an American corporation needs workers, it should hire and train Americans.”

DHS Omits Descriptions Of Data Undermining Immigration Rule

DHS omits describing data that significantly undermine the central premise of the proposed rule: that DHS can increase the cost of new H-1B petitions by over $100,000 and raise over $8 billion in revenue annually because employers will not significantly reduce their filings of new H-1B petitions. DHS does so by downplaying the negative impact of the Sept. 2025 proclamation and the $100,000 fee on filings for new H-1B petitions at U.S. consulates.

“USCIS also evaluated information on initial H-1B registrations from cap-subject petitioners for cap FY 2027,” according to DHS in a section titled Fee Elasticity. “These analyses are detailed in a separate Technical Appendix published to the proposed rule’s docket. While the technical appendix discusses how registrations and consular processing receipts have responded to the $100,000 proclamation payment and prior fee increases, as USCIS has yet to observe the full current fiscal year behavior of H-1B petitioners, DHS continues to analyze FY 2027 cap-subject petitions.”

No one reading that paragraph would know that the technical appendix reveals that “From September 21st, 2025 through May 24th, 2026, USCIS received 91.2% fewer initial consular Form I-129 H-1B petitions relative to the same time frame in the previous year.” In other words, after the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions, filings of new H-1B petitions plummeted at U.S. consulates by over 91% in one year. DHS downplays the revelation: “The implementation of additional fees or payments modified the receipt submission behavior of cap-exempt H-1B petitioners.” (Emphasis added.)

DHS also did not discuss in the Fee Elasticity section of the rule that it had compiled data on 30 individual companies that also undermined the premise of the proposed rule. Table A-6 in the technical appendix shows that after requiring the $100,000 fee in Sept. 2025, filings at consulates by 13 of the 30 companies dropped by 85% or more between the FY 2026 H-1B cap registration and the FY 2027 H-1B cap registration. These 13 companies included Infosys, IBM and Accenture. (Companies register for H-1B petitions before the start of a fiscal year and USCIS selects petitions via a lottery.)

DHS did not include the percentage decline but only listed the drop in the number of H-1B cap registrations. The National Foundation for American Policy calculated how much company H-1B registrations fell. NFAP found that, on average, the companies identified by DHS filed 68% fewer H-1B cap registrations between FY 2026 and FY 2027. The $100,000 fee, which applied to petitions filed outside the United States, went into effect near the end of FY 2026.

Given that the proposed rule was published five months after the FY 2027 H-1B initial registration period ended, it is unclear how DHS could write in the proposed rule, “DHS continues to analyze FY 2027 cap-subject petitions.” That phrasing appeared to be used in place of describing the dramatic declines in filings that undermine the central premise of the rule: raising revenue.

“Fee elasticity,” as used by DHS, is a measure of the sensitivity of applications in response to fee increases. Mark Regets, a labor economist and NFAP senior fellow, raises two issues with how DHS discusses fee elasticity in the rule. “It’s not responsible to look at small changes in fees when trying to predict the effects of large fee changes, such as introducing a $103,265 fee that is more than 100 times larger than the small fee changes DHS examined and cites in the rule. It’s invalid to use the estimate that way.”

In the proposed rule, DHS stated that the fee elasticity of applications in response to changes in H-1B fees between FY 2021 and FY 2025 was “less than one.” That provides little practical information. If one looks at the technical appendix, Regets points out that even the smallest estimate of the impact of raising fees indicates that a near doubling of fees would result in a 62% reduction in applications, a significant amount. He notes that a $103,265 fee is far more than double. DHS failed to acknowledge this in the Fee Elasticity section in the notice of proposed rulemaking.

DHS stated in the immigration rule: “However, the success of the USCIS fee model and this rulemaking in generating the necessary revenue depends on the filing volumes of cap-subject H-1B petitions not falling short of those projected herein.” DHS assumes it will still have at least 85,000 eligible H-1B petitions filed annually, even after employers must pay an additional $103,265. That appears to ignore employers’ responses after the introduction of the $100,000 fee in Sept. 2025. It may also explain why DHS omitted an accurate description of its own data in the rule.