We get this question a lot from employers. The certified LCA lists $85,000. The employee has been paid $100,000 for two years. Business slows, a major account goes away, and the employer asks the obvious question: can we go back down to the $85,000 we certified? Usually the answer is no. The LCA wage is...
Can You Lower an H-1B Employee’s Salary to the LCA Wage?
One day before it was set to take effect, a federal district court blocked the DHS rule ending “duration of status” (D/S) for F-1, J-1, and I nonimmigrants. On September 14, 2026, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV (D. Mass.) entered a nationwide preliminary injunction barring DHS and ICE from implementing the rule while the litigation...
Over the past several days, immigrant visa applicants around the world have reported that their long-awaited consular interviews were cancelled or postponed often with little notice and no new date. The cancellations are not isolated to one embassy or one region. According to reporting by The New York Times on August 24, 2026, the U.S....
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...
On August 21, 2026, a federal judge in New York struck down the Department of State policy that had implemented the 75-country immigrant visa pause. The pause was originally announced in mid-January 2026 and allowed for Applicants to attend their consular interviews but barred consular officers from issuing immigrant visas. The Administration justified the decision...
Aug212026
Snapshot: USCIS has released a policy memo providing guidance regarding the new public charge rule that will be implemented on September 18, 2026 Your filing date will determine if the new rule applies to you Any benefits received before September 18 mostly will not count, do not drop coverage in a panic After September 18,...
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...
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...