Trump Signs Order and Proclamation Tightening H-1B: Employer Layoffs to Factor in Reviews, $100,000 Fee Extended to September 2027
On September 18, 2026, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order and a presidential proclamation at the White House further tightening the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program. The order directs the State, Labor and Homeland Security departments to take employer layoffs into account in H-1B decisions, and the proclamation extends the $100,000 payment first imposed by Proclamation 10973 in 2025 for another 12 months, until September 21, 2027.
Under the executive order, the Secretaries of State, Labor and Homeland Security must coordinate with the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Education and the Small Business Administrator, drawing on wage, employment and industry data, and must consider whether a sponsoring employer directly or indirectly engaged in layoffs of similarly situated U.S. workers within the previous year or plans future layoffs. The Labor Department must begin reviewing previously submitted labor condition applications within 30 days. The order states that the wage gap between H-1B holders and comparable U.S. workers starts at $9,000 and climbs as high as $20,000, and that technology employers laid off between 800,000 and 1.3 million American employees from 2022 through 2026 — figures stated in the order itself.
The proclamation says the $100,000 payment has been made for more than 700 petitions since Proclamation 10973 took effect on September 21, 2025; that the largest IT staffing and outsourcing firms cut their combined H-1B registrations from 24,946 to 2,055, a 92 percent decrease; that consular processing requests fell nearly 97 percent; and that registrants with at least a U.S. master's degree rose from 45.1 percent of the total for fiscal 2026 to 66.1 percent for fiscal 2027. The entry restriction is extended for one year, subject to exceptions such as a national-interest determination by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Related: 20州起诉10万美元H-1B费用
Source: The White House
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: GSM 行政令统一模板（美国总统行政令）
