The Center for Immigration Studies claimed in a report that the $100,000 fee for H-1B visa petitions does not reduce the number of H-1B visas, as most recipients are already in the US. The visa fee, effective from September 2025, is for candidates who are not inside the US at the time of filing the petition, and not for those who are present in the country on other visa programs, John Miano argued in the report. Miyano is an expert on the impact of foreign labor on technology workers. But the report has already created controversy as David J. Baer, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, called it a bogus argument and said that even though half of the potential H-1B applicants are in the US, cutting off the other half would have a major impact. Miano cited data in his report that in 2024, 54% of H-1B beneficiaries were already in the US on some other status. “Assuming that 54 percent of potential beneficiaries were already in the US, that means more than 180,000 workers were already in the US. Even without playing games with the H-1B process, such as moving people to the US temporarily on another visa, there are more than twice as many aliens entering the lottery who are exempt from the $100,000 fee (i.e., already in the US) because there are visa slots,” Miano said. Said. Citing a recent report that this year’s lottery (H-1B Visa Lottery FY 2027) saw a decline in the number of entries and increased chances of winning the lottery, Miyano said the fee will have no impact as the annual H-1B quota of 85,000 will be filled like every other year. “There will be 85,000 quota visas this year, as there were last year and the year before that. The $100,000 fee had no impact on that number. The Trump administration did not grant or approve more visas. The chances of winning the lottery have improved significantly this year; Approval rates have increased, but not the number of approvals. The only question is how the $100,000 fee will affect visas that are not subject to quotas for universities or government research. In FY 2024, it was 56,000 visas. This will not be known until the end of the fiscal year,” Miano argued. Baer disagreed and said that a lot of visas are still being cut because people who are already in the US are not getting visas when they become H-1B – their status just changes. He said it’s bad for the economy because these people who are already in America are probably already contributing to the economy and foreign talent is not getting a chance to come to America. “And even if we focus on the granting of Status+ visas, the fee will still cut visas on net by reducing issuance to 50K cap-free workers,” Baer argued.
