USCIS Proposes $103,265 Fee for H-1B Petitions. On August 25, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published in the Federal Register a proposed rule, “Fee for Certain H-1B Petitions,” that would require employers to include a $103,265 fee with all H-1B cap-subject petitions. According to the proposal, the fee is intended to cover not just the costs that USCIS incurs in processing petitions, but also costs “incurred by multiple Federal agencies in processing, adjudicating, and supporting the lawful immigration system, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in [the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)], [and the] Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) in [the U.S. Department of Justice], [the U.S. Department of State], and [the U.S. Department of Labor].” USCIS maintains that the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes it to set “fees for providing adjudication and naturalization services … at a level that will ensure recovery of the full costs of providing all such services.” The proposal is another attempt by the Trump administration—along with the $100,000 entry fee for H-1B visa holders that is currently enjoined—to place restrictions on the H-1B program. Comments on the proposal are due by September 24, 2026. Andrew G. Drozdowski has more.
OPT, H-1B Regulatory Proposals Advance. In addition to the proposed fee for H-1B petitions, DHS is moving forward with two additional regulatory proposals that will impact high-skilled employment-based immigration:
- On August 20, 2026, ICE sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) a regulatory proposal titled, “Optional Practical Training Fees.” The regulation identifier number for this proposal is different from ICE’s pending proposal to make changes to the OPT program, which is not scheduled to be issued until February 2027. Thus, these are separate initiatives. There is no publicly available information for the “Optional Training Fees” proposal (it was not included as part of the July 3, 2026, Spring Regulatory Agenda), but its title clearly suggests the attachment of some fee as a prerequisite to foreign nationals’ participation in the OPT program—perhaps upwards of $100,000, as some media outlets have reported.
- On August 24, 2026, USCIS submitted to OIRA a proposal titled, “Reforming the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Classification Program.” According to the abstract in the Regulatory Agenda, this proposal would make changes to the H-1B program “by revising eligibility for cap exemptions, providing greater scrutiny for employers that have violated program requirements, and increasing oversight over third party placements, among other provisions.”
After OIRA completes its review of these proposals, the respective agencies will make them available for public comment prior to issuing final rules. This process could take months.
NLRB General Counsel Sets Forth Case Priorities. On August 26, 2026, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) general counsel, Crystal Carey, issued a memorandum outlining the cases for which she has requested or intends to request the Board revisit existing precedent. According to the memo, General Counsel Carey has already taken the position that existing cases involving severance agreements, workplace rules, mandatory meetings, and predictions on the impact of unionization, among others, should be overruled. Accordingly, these are cases that the Board’s Republican majority will likely address in the near future. Perhaps a little farther down the docket for Board review are precedents that General Counsel Carey intends to challenge, “if the opportunity arises.” These include cases concerning bargaining orders, enhanced remedies, objector representation fees, and offensive conduct.
New Board Member Taps Labor Veteran for Top Counsel Post. Recently sworn-in NLRB member James R. Macy has named William B. Cowen as his chief counsel. If that name sounds familiar, it is because Mr. Cowen is a longtime NLRB official, having recently served as acting general counsel of the Board for much of 2025. Cowen has served in many positions at the NLRB over the years, including a brief stint as a member in 2002.
Group(er)think. On August 23, 2007, John Yates, a commercial fisherman, tossed some undersized red grouper back into the ocean and was subsequently prosecuted under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. During a routine inspection of Yates’s boat, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer (deputized as a federal agent by the National Marine Fisheries Service) found that Yates had caught and retained seventy-two red grouper that were smaller than the federal size standard (twenty inches) and ordered the fish segregated until the boat reached port. Back at port, the fish in question didn’t measure the same, and a crew member eventually admitted that Yates had ordered him to toss the undersized fish overboard and replace them with larger fish from the rest of the catch.
More than three years later, Yates was prosecuted for violating a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that criminalizes the intentional destruction or concealment of “any record, document, or tangible object” for the purpose of obstructing or influencing a federal investigation. The government argued that the term “tangible object” included fish. A jury found Yates guilty, and he was sentenced to thirty days in prison. Yates filed a petition for a writ of certiorari before the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 2015 plurality opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court sided with Yates, holding that the phrase “‘tangible object’ … is better read to cover only objects one can use to record or preserve information, not all objects in the physical world.” Justice Kagan dissented, writing, “A fish is, of course, a discrete thing that possesses physical form.” Kagan’s citation to authority for that proposition was the 1960 children’s book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss.
