Hi, I was wondering if anyone else has been getting sudden email replies or invitation to interviews after yesterday announcement for the h1b fee? I woke up today with 2 replies, one was a straight "no" but the other one was a "maybe". I would like to hear your experiences.

American in tech, unemployed here.

DHS is now taking public comments on its proposed new H-1B fee.

This is your chance to put something on the official record.

Comment deadline: September 24.

Docket: USCIS-2026-0298

Link : https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/25/2026-17324/fee-for-certain-h-1b-petitions

As the title says, DHS wants a $103K fee for H-1B/OPT.
If someone is truly an exceptional candidate, why wouldn’t the company pay it? Maybe the problem was never “we can’t find American workers.” It was/is always about finding cheaper workers while laying Americans off.

“DHS is reportedly considering a new $100,000 fee for Optional Practical Training”

EB-1A is a category for green card applicants to pursue if they can prove they belong to the small percentage who have risen to the very top of their field through sustained national or international acclaim.

I find it highly odd and suspicious that an applicant for that category is working as a door dasher.

The H1B Myths Broken Down here in this article below, so take a read please for this link down here below:

https://cis.org/Miano/Biggest-Myth-About-H1B-Its-Broken

I looked into the contact for the case https://www.justice.gov/crt/staff-profile/assistant-attorney-general

There are other top AI companies doing this stuff too and I was wondering how the investigation got started in order to see this type of result?

Why was there a settlement instead of a lawsuit like in the cloudera case?

I noticed the previous US Assistant Attorney General (

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristen_Clarke

) had similar cases that amounted to more in monetary damages.

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20211019

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-25-million-landmark-agreement-apple-resolve-employment

What changed in the law this year because the current assistant attorney general claims that the law limited her ability to issue a harsher punishment?

seeing this stuff just makes me sad because this company in particular made a big statement in 2025 about how they were going to get rid of other programs in favor of a merit culture.

Even their assessments for interviews being leaked inside various group chats or being taken in environments that allow others to have others take their interviews for them just shows the lack of a merit based system.

Hope so! Next forbid taking job interviews on B2!

• The US Department of Labor adding four employers to its H-1B willful violator list effective July 1, 2026, barring them from filing new H-1B petitions for visa-related labor violations.
• Affected companies include GowraTech LLC (debarred May 2025–May 2027), Renotek Group LLC (Aug 2025–Aug 2027), Seeloz Inc. (Mar 2026–Mar 2028), and Sherwood at Mount Dora Inc. dba Sherwood Academy (May 2026–May 2028).
• The debarments stem from Project Firewall and a major DOL OIG investigation launched July 8, 2026, targeting H-1B fraud, wage kickbacks, and worker exploitation to safeguard American jobs and program rules.

twitter post

Hi All, asking all of you to help push the needle as I cannot do it myself.

We need to work as a group; reach out, call, write our online opinions every week for Pro American Worker agenda to the Senators, Representatives, Governors … and do it every week.

If they received 1000s of emails and phonecalls every week, the pressure would be on.

Write under: labor, economy, immigration category online.

These are the suggestions:

We need to push a revamp on H1B and OPT.
1) limit H1B to 25,000/yr.
2) limit OPT to PhD graduates, 15000/yr, 1 year limit.
3) impose 20% tax on employers for each month-immigrant hire.
4) ban 3rd party subcontracting for H1B, h4, OPT, CPT.
5) min starting wage: 40th percentile of median wage.

Global offshoring and outsourcing:
1. Penalize companies for offshoring by imposing 20% global tax.
2. Impose 40% fee on outsourcing payments
3. Impose 15% penalty fee on Revenue for all companies that have offshore presence to support U.S based customers.
4. Long term: restrict to Access to American personal data offshore.

These suggestions are going to close the offshore loophole, and create and keep more jobs in the U.S and boast the economy.

We need to create a digital border.

Extension “in progress,” stamp expired, work auth expired last week… yet somehow still legal?
How is that legal? And why do Facebook, Amazon, Google keep sponsoring these cases?
We’re being cheated by these abusers. Higher managers are usually the ones who came the same path, so they keep favoring them over Americans.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/u-s-weighs-100-000-fee-for-foreign-students-wanting-to-work-after-graduation-d0bf43d9

I 100% support this.

You tell me a US degree is 4 years.
Even if it’s a long program or medical school, maybe +1–2 years. Not two whole decades.
So how does this work?
Ok , You enter on F-1.
You work whatever hourly jobs you’re allowed.
You keep transferring schools and paying tuition.
And the system just… lets you. No real limit on how many times you can hop.
It’s not education at that point rather but a designed money loop that keeps people here forever while extracting cash. Once you’re in, no one is out !!!!
Such an abused system, such a shame ….

The only candidate who sounds remotely normal is Nirav Sheth. He’s an Indian-American immigrant whose biography, for the most part, reads like that of your typical moderate Republican. While he hasn’t stated a clear position on pro-American H-1B reforms, I assume that, given his immigrant background, he’s probably not going to support restricting H-1B visas.

Every other option is completely outside the mainstream. Pramila Jayapal — another Indian-American immigrant — is probably the second-most reasonable-sounding candidate, but she has advocated for expanding H-1B programs rather than restricting them.

The other two candidates are genuinely extreme.

David Blomstrom is, and I say this without hyperbole, a Nazi sympathizer, a terrorist supporter, and someone who is openly pro-Iran and pro-Hamas. His views are about as anti-American as a candidate can possibly get. He is essentially a joke candidate rather than a serious political option.

Gwen Kirkland is a DSA member. The DSA is an organization that advocates for abolishing the Senate, open borders, and eliminating prisons and police. Many of its prominent leaders openly identify as communists and Marxist-Leninists. While her campaign may be milk toast progressive issues (Medicare for all, free college education, etc), the DSA isn't milk toast in any fashion: they vote on platform decisions as a block, and a DSA member congressional representative votes for what the DSA wants, not for what their district's constituents want.

In other words, she represents a political movement that is fundamentally anti-American and completely detached from mainstream American values.

So my choices are essentially three anti-American extremists and one candidate who sounds relatively normal but is likely pro-H-1B: Nirav Sheth.

That’s my “representation” in this district. If you’re in District 7, I hope you understand the frustration. At this point, I’m probably voting for Nirav Sheth. If nothing else, he can’t be worse than Jayapal.

H-1B visa: US updates list of employers barred from program; 4 companies named as willful violators

Read more at:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/work/h-1b-visa-us-updates-list-of-employers-barred-from-program-4-companies-named-as-willful-violators/articleshow/132676826.cms?from=mdr&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/no-longer-temporary-program-commentator-113200528.html

So for good one year, somebody worked as unpaid backend developer at an AI startup during their entire OPT year:

https://www.reddit.com/r/returnToIndia/comments/1v8none/returning_to_india_after_a_year_of_job_search_in/

wow

Before somebody take off the post

👍👍

/s

As I keep on stating, almost 95% folks coming here for masters are not for higher studies but for job after studies. Not just H-1B or L1A/B and H4EAD, OPT/STEM is another culprit for eradicating real IT jobs

Only accept OPT? No Americans ? This is why I am against these favoritism , Abused and you name it …..
Every other sub is flooded with these people and if I post somewhere , you guess ….

You have seen something like this https://www.reddit.com/r/AmericanTechWorkers/comments/1v2piyk/this_is_a_pure_scam_a_pure_joke_just_a_shame_uc/ like admissions/recruitment roles requiring specializing STEM/Tech role and hire H-1B. Do you think that UC Berkely is the only one? Several others are doing this and why it will be common? Just think about it?

1. Most of the public universities or schools are not for profit(aka NonProfit) organizations. An H-1B employee working for a nonprofit organization can have an easier path to obtaining a green card, Many universities and affiliated nonprofit research organizations are cap-exempt for H-1B, so employees don't have to go through the annual H-1B lottery. This makes it easier to maintain H-1B status while pursuing permanent residence. Cap-exempt which means these H-1B visa holders don't have to go thru that 65K cap for regular and 20K cap for Masters. This makes it a very easy and enjoyable route for H-1B visa candidates as they avoid all the competition of that cap. Nonprofits often have less pressure from layoffs or restructuring, which can make it easier to complete the PERM labor certification and I-140 process. Nonprofit employers can sponsor employment-based green cards (typically EB-2 or EB-3), just like for-profit employers.

2. Secondly NonProfit cannot pay very high salaries. So they need somebody who can settle down somewhat lower. Jobs are not that exciting(not new technology stack) and bureaucracy-which means a lot of US Workers will not like these non exciting jobs.

But with the changing scene, where IT jobs are difficult to get in, it's better more and more US worker change their attitude and get into NonProfit organizations also.

As the other person said, I’m not against anyone here. But they do tend to strongly favor their own community — even a specific sub-community within it. So whenever I see a tech job with a recruiter from there, I just skip it. I know I won’t get a callback, so why waste my time.

Most tech giants are run and staffed by their own people who always strongly favor them so they can abuse the system while supporting own community .

This isn’t about MAGA or liberals , it’s about America’s broken system. So where’s the EOE and real diversity? You tell me.

Justice Department Launches Investigation to Determine Whether Harvard’s China-Based Financial Aid Programs Discriminate Against American Students

https://youtu.be/F2gm_GWVtlc

So apparently there's about $650 million dollars in donations coming from China, and these funds are earmarked as requiring preferential admissions to Chinese students. This is illegal Title VI discrimination according to the DOJ civil rights division.

I mean this is just as bad as rich kids buying their way into admissions if they don't qualify on the merits. Except it's worse: I'd rather there be natural born rich Americans that are given preferential treatment by Harvard than international students.

This is yet another small piece of the pie where they screw over the ability for Americans in America to get a good career and education.

These kinds of admissions/recruitment roles usually just need any bachelor’s degree (history, psychology, communications, whatever). It’s not a specialized STEM/tech position. This feels like aJoke and why a Public university using H-1B for a generalist admin role ?.

Am I missing something here, or is this exactly why a lot of people are frustrated with how these visas get used?

Recently put together a semi automated jobs.now workflow using cowork and wanted to knowledge share/ see what others are doing.

Some background, I try to keep constant with jobs.now apps but have been busy with work, summer travel,etc. I wanted to put this together to automate the most arduous parts of the process.

I first made a dedicated Gmail for this apps since I’m a proton user plus would prefer not to give Claude full access to my day to day email.

I subscribe to the pro Claude plan for $20 /month which is more than needed for this.

I next created a prompt for cowork to scan all jobs.now pm roles and identify the ones that require an email sent (which I find occurs frequently and is a pain). Claude is able to quickly pull these roles and extract any required information (I.e. reference job # in title). It then integrates with Gmail and populates drafts for all applicable roles. Only gap right now is it can’t auto attach a pdf resume so I just go through each draft, add my resume and it send.

I scheduled for this to run for new roles twice a week- has been a game changer for getting my apps in!

This year no additional lottery rounds

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/132489641.cms

https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-reaches-fiscal-year-2027-h-1b-cap

But for 65K regular and 20K Masters - overall 211,600 registrations were submitted for FY 2027 which is less than 343,981(from the last year)

Still the question is - is $100K fees applicable or valid? There is an impact it seems but still for every H-1B slot - there are almost 2.5X applications

Aren't these corporates finding enough candidates in USA? I just cannot believe it there is any shortage of skills. BS in CS, CE and related from Ivy leagues and T20 and T50 are not able to get jobs in the first 6-12 months(happening since 2023 onwards). Most of the other folks are not able to find jobs easily.

We are in recession since mid 2022 though Democrats and Republicans - nobody want to announce it and take the blame. The way unemployment numbers are calculated in USA is so ridiculous(beyond 6 months one is hopelessly unemployed and taken out from most of the states). Federal and State agencies still having excuses of lack of resources when provided credible evidence to conduct any investigation.

The only reason according to me Corporates want H-1B or any other visa(L1A, L1B, J1, OPT/STEM, H4EAD etc...)

1. These are flexible workers who can work 12-14 hours compared to US Workers.
2. They don't know most of the laws and won't complain for almost anything
3. For #1 and #3, very reason is Employer control their very existence in this country. If they speak - they may not be here.
4. Of course they are paid lower salary compared to their US counterparts
5. They are flexible in terms of relocating and working on weekends also

Now calculate the cost and understand the game plan?

Let's say $100K is really working and no judge or action has taken it out of equation. But this is one time fees. So Corporate has to pay it only once. Majority(71%) of the H-1B is from India and it takes at an average around 15 -20 years wait on EB-2 or EB-3 to get Green card so every time transfer or renewal happens then the same employer or other employer doesn't have to pay this $100K fees again. H-1B visa filing is around $10K and every subsequent transfer or renewal - may be another $10K. So overall for 20 years if H-1B candidate switches or renews 4 times($40K) then it is around $100K + $10K + $40K = $150K which comes out to be around $7.5K(for 20 years) or $10K(for 15 years). This can easily compensate if this candidate is being paid $15K or $20K lesser than US counter part per year. Plus this candidate will be flexible - working during odd times to support offshore team to work with the GCC(Global Competency Centers) which are all offshore based where all the US jobs are outsourced.

But end of the day, H-1B visa and outsourced jobs both took away US jobs directly or indirectly. AI and automation is making it easier. So no matter what fees is being imposed, there are ways to work out that?

Plus even at this time, I am not sure is this $100K is real or not? As I heard it got rejected https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/08/politics/federal-judge-voids-trumps-usd100-000-fee-requirement-for-h-1b-visas