Business & Economics
U.S. Scraps H-1B Lottery, Adds $100k Entry Fee After Court Win
DHS issued a final rule on 24 Dec 2025 that replaces the random H-1B lottery with a wage-weighted draw starting 27 Feb 2026, hours after a federal judge upheld President Trump’s separate $100,000 surcharge on each new H-1B petition.
Focusing Facts
- Under the rule, FY 2027 registrations will be ranked by prevailing-wage level (Level I gets 1 chance, Level IV gets 4) instead of pure chance; implementation date: 27 Feb 2026.
- Judge Beryl A. Howell (D.D.C.) on 23 Dec 2025 upheld the 19 Sep 2025 proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions, denying the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s injunction request.
- Indians held 71 % of the 399,395 approved H-1B petitions in FY 2024, making them the cohort most exposed to the wage-based draw and six-figure fee.
Context
Washington has oscillated between courting and curbing skilled immigration since at least the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the 1924 national-origins quotas, and the 1990 Immigration Act that created today’s 65k H-1B cap. The new wage-weighted draw echoes the 1917 literacy test: a filter that professes neutrality but in practice favors wealthier, better-credentialed migrants and the deep-pocketed firms that hire them. It also extends a century-long trend of presidents stretching emergency or economic powers—think Carter’s 1980 grain embargo or Obama’s 2012 DACA memo—to achieve immigration goals that Congress sidesteps. On a 100-year horizon, this moment matters less for its immediate tech-sector pain than for normalizing executive-level price tags and performance metrics on entry: a template future administrations could apply to other visa classes or even green cards, gradually shifting U.S. immigration from statutory quotas toward market-priced auctions.
Perspectives
Pro-Trump / conservative-leaning outlets
e.g., India Today, قناة العربية — Portray the weighted H-1B system and the $100,000 fee as long-overdue safeguards that will stop employers from abusing cheap foreign labour and will protect American wages. By foregrounding administration quotes and repeating “America First” framing, they gloss over employer costs and the impact on foreign professionals, reflecting a sympathetic stance toward Trump’s restrictionist immigration agenda.
Indian economic and tech press
e.g., The Times of India, MoneyControl — Warn that replacing the lottery with a wage-weighted system will sharply reduce opportunities for entry-level Indian professionals and raise costs for the country’s IT services firms. Coverage centres Indian workers’ losses and corporate margins, which may overstate the damage while giving scant mention to U.S. labour-market concerns that motivated the rule.
Business-industry outlets focused on legal fallout
e.g., Yahoo Finance, News Ghana — Emphasise that the court decision upholding the $100,000 fee is a legal blow to tech companies and universities that rely on H-1B talent, highlighting possible appeals and economic disruption. Framing the issue largely through the lens of corporate costs and talent pipelines may underplay arguments about protecting domestic workers and national security cited by the government.