On September 11, 2026, DHS published a new rule in the Federal register titled “Eliminating the Discretionary 60-day Grace Period,” with comments due 60 days later, which puts the deadline at November 10, 2026. The short version: if this rule is finalized as drafted, a nonimmigrant worker whose employment ends is out of status and...
Employment-Based Immigration
Last October I wrote about the Supreme Court declining to hear Save Jobs USA v. DHS, and I said at the time that the decision did nothing to stop a future administration from revisiting the program through new regulatory action. That is exactly what is now happening. DHS has placed a rule on the Unified...
Aug242026
On August 25, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would impose a $103,265 fee on H-1B cap-subject petitions. The timing is not a coincidence. It comes one month after the First Circuit refused to let the government reinstate the $100,000 fee created by last September’s presidential...
I’ve been telling people this for a while now: if you own your own company and want to sponsor yourself for an H-1B through it, you do not need a board of directors. No investors. No outside corporate governance. None of it. I’ve said it enough times that people started asking me if I was...
On August 18, 2026, a coalition of university groups and labor unions filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to block the rule ending duration of status that I wrote about last month. They filed a motion for a preliminary injunction along with the complaint. The lawsuit claims that DHS...
On July 17, 2026, DHS published a final rule ending duration of status for F-1 students, replacing it with a fixed admission period capped at four years. I wrote about what that means for Day 1 CPT here. Less than a month later, on August 12, 2026, SEVP issued Broadcast Message BCM 2608-01, “Reminder of...
A rule effective January 17, 2025, changed what’s possible for entrepreneurs and business owners pursuing an H-1B visa. It allows H-1B beneficiaries to self-petition even when they hold a controlling interest in the petitioning entity. For founders and beneficiary-owned businesses, that opened a real path forward. But this path comes with specific documentation requirements. This...
On August 13, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) issued a decision that reverses fourteen years of settled immigration law and could affect many people who are pursuing a green card from inside the United States. The case is Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026). The short version: if you have...