Immigration lawyers and businesses are issuing urgent warnings to H-1B visa holders, strongly advising them to cease international travel and return to the United States immediately. This counsel follows President Donald Trump’s announcement of a significant new plan to impose a hefty $100,000 fee on these crucial work visas, with a critical deadline fast approaching.
In a development set to profoundly impact Indian professionals working on H-1B visas in the U.S., President Trump signed a proclamation on Friday. This new regulation restricts the entry of non-immigrants employed in a “specialty occupation” unless their H-1B petitions are accompanied by an additional payment of $100,000. This stringent proclamation is slated to become effective at precisely 12:01 a.m. on September 21, 2025.
The immediacy of the situation has prompted immigration attorneys and companies to sound the alarm for H-1B visa holders and their family members currently outside the U.S. for work or vacation. They are being told to return to the U.S. before the September 21 deadline, effectively giving those abroad mere hours to re-enter the country or face the severe risk of being denied entry and left stranded.
Cyrus Mehta, an eminent New York-based immigration attorney, underscored the gravity of the situation in a post on social media. He stated, “H-1B visa holders who are out of the U.S. on business or vacation will get stranded unless they get in before midnight September 21.” Mehta further suggested that H-1B holders still in India might have already missed this narrow window due to flight transit times.
Mehta even hinted at a challenging scenario, suggesting there might still be a remote possibility for an H-1B visa holder in India to arrive in California before the midnight September 21 deadline, implying extraordinary travel arrangements would be required.
Users on social media have also circulated excerpts from an internal Microsoft email. The tech giant reportedly instructed its employees on H-1B visas and their dependents to avoid traveling outside the U.S. and to return promptly before the September 21 cut-off. Microsoft is understood to have advised its staff to remain in the U.S. for the “foreseeable future” to “avoid being denied re-entry.”
Despite the proclamation specifically mentioning H-1B visa holders, companies are also advising dependents, who typically reside in the U.S. on H-4 visas, to remain within the country’s borders, anticipating potential ripple effects.
David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute, strongly criticized the new measure. In a social media post, he highlighted that Indian H-1B workers have “contributed an unfathomable amount” to America, including hundreds of billions in taxes, tens of billions more in fees, and trillions in services. He lamented, “Among the most peaceful, intelligent, interesting people to grace our shores. And what do we give back? Demonization & discrimination…”
Bier elaborated on what he termed a “set of laws mandating discriminatory treatment at every stage of the legal immigration process, particularly for Indians.” He noted that they have been effectively barred from adjusting to permanent residence for decades, based on nothing more than their country of birth.
He further argued that this framework subjects them to “unique discriminatory policies” that mandate their employers to advertise their jobs to others, require them to pay exorbitant fees and legal costs, and prohibit easy changes to job sites or duties. Bier found this situation “unimaginable.”
He also brought attention to the children of Indian workers, who arrived as elementary school students and are now “Americans in every single way you can imagine.” Yet, the law, he stated, compels them to leave upon reaching adulthood or “literally win the lottery to get to stay…. and be as discriminated against as your parents.”
Bier concluded his impactful post by stating, “Now Trump comes along and signs an executive order that officially villainizes this population, as job thieves, prosperity burglars, legal system cheats, security threats. Possibly the most law-abiding, hard-working, peaceful, productive population in all of U.S. history!”