By:  Richard Hanus, Esq.

October 8, 2025

Labor unions, healthcare organizations, educational and religious institutions file legal challenge to $100K H-1B work visa filing fee

 In recent weeks, the Trump Administration shocked the nation with a plan to require companies seeking to file new H-1B work visa petitions to pay an additional $100,000 fee.   In response, a federal lawsuit was brought by a group of U.S. professional and religious organizations alleging that the new fee constitutes an unlawful tax and a game changing, prohibitive measure that impermissibly transforms the core of an existing law as enacted by Congress.

This measure, from the Administration’s perspective, will protect U.S. workers from being replaced by foreign nationals and guard against U.S. companies abusing the visa petition system and paying lower wages, especially in our nation’s tech sector. From the perspective of U.S. companies and prospective H-1B workers, this type of visa is one of the most popular “right ways” foreign nationals and their employers seek to facilitate lawful immigration status and employment authorization.  It is used by companies to avail of the world’s best and brightest talent, including foreign students attending university here and seeking to remain following graduation to contribute their knowledge and talents.  Users of the system also argue that those on H-1B work visas fill important leadership roles at their petitioning employers and enhance company and workforce productivity and letting the fee stand will cause small and medium sized companies to shy away from a cost prohibitive visa process, and lead outstanding foreign workers to take taking their talents overseas.  

 The outcome of this lawsuit is highly consequential for hundreds of U.S. companies and hundreds of thousands of current and future H-1B visa workers, and developments on these legal proceedings will continue to be reported on here.

U.S. citizenship test to incorporate a more difficult civics portion

U.S. residents seeking to become naturalized U.S. citizens by way of an N-400 Application for Naturalization will soon face a more difficult “civics” component, where an applicant’s knowledge about the U.S. government will be put to a more thorough test.  U.S. immigration authorities recently announced that N-400 Applications filed on or after October 20, 2025 will include an expanded civics portion where applicants, at their naturalization interviews, will be asked 20 questions out of a possible pool of 128 questions, and required to provide 12 correct answers.  This new hurdle is in contrast to the current civics test where applicants must provide 6 correct answers to 10 questions, and out of a possible pool of 100 questions.     Applicants are also required to pass an English proficiency component by reading and writing a sentence in English.  Special accommodations and exemptions are available in some circumstances, including for elderly, long time residents, and applicants with documented disabilities.    The new, heightened civics component is in addition to a more stringent “good moral character” requirement which was recently implemented as part of the naturalization process.

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