Immigration law firm Meltzer Hellrung says U.S. officials have approved some H-1B petitions without the $100,000 payment, potentially reopening consideration of overseas hires for employers that had previously ruled them out.
In an Oct. 23 update, the firm said it had seen petitions remain undecided past the 15-business-day premium-processing deadline before approvals began. It gave no count and described the pace as uneven. Meltzer Hellrung also said it had organized a potential lawsuit involving multiple companies but had not filed it.
The payment applies to certain petitions under a proclamation issued by President Donald Trump in September 2025. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) guidance includes some petitions for people outside the country without a valid H-1B visa and certain requests for consular processing. Some petitions for people in the United States whose change of status or extension was granted were excluded.
Court rulings have left the policy’s status contested. A federal district court in Washington, D.C., upheld it in December 2025. On June 8, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts invalidated the agency policy implementing the payment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined on July 24 to pause that ruling during the government’s appeal; the decision did not resolve the appeal on its merits.
On Sept. 30, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California vacated and sent back agency policies implementing the original proclamation and its 2026 extension. The order bars agencies and people acting under them from enforcing or implementing those policies until required rulemaking and regulatory-flexibility analyses are completed. The government appealed to the Ninth Circuit on Oct. 9.
The White House had extended the restriction through Sept. 21, 2027. USCIS says the Department of Homeland Security will comply with the First Circuit’s order and plans to collect the payment if that order is lifted.
Meltzer Hellrung said employers may reconsider overseas applicants they had screened out because of the cost. India-born beneficiaries accounted for 283,755, or 71%, of approved H-1B petitions in USCIS’ fiscal 2024 country-of-birth data. That measure records birthplace, not citizenship or current residence, so it does not show how many Indian citizens abroad might benefit. Petition approval alone also does not guarantee a worker can enter the United States or begin work.
The California case’s next scheduled step is a case-management conference on Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 5 p.m. ET (21:00 UTC).
