Proposal To Raise H-1B Filing Fees In The Face Of Decline In USCIS Service

A November 14, 2019 a Proposed Rule issued by USCIS maintained that the filing fee for I-129s, the form used for H-1B visas, should go up by approximately 50%. This proposal comes at a time when CIS processing times have slowed dramatically. Worse still, USCIS has created a “paper wall” by revising internal policies and then using those revisions to deny H-1Bs at unprecedented rates (see Mother Jones report). Many of the decision have been appealed, resulting in the denials being overturned, also at an unprecedented rate. This is not surprising given that USCIS, by way of example, denied an H-1B filed for a Mechanical Engineer position where the foreign national had a degree in Mechanical Engineering; USCIS found that the employer had not established that a minimum of a BA degree was required for the job.