Washington extends the $100,000 visa toll
The Trump administration has renewed the H-1B entry restriction for a year and ordered closer scrutiny of employers linked to layoffs. What it means for Telangana workers remains unmeasured.
The H-1B payment requirement has been extended for another year, while its Telangana impact remains unmeasured.
The Trump administration has extended its $100,000 H-1B payment requirement for another year, adding a fresh layer of uncertainty for skilled workers seeking entry to the United States. The presidential proclamation says the restriction will run from September 21, 2026, to September 21, 2027, unless extended again, and applies to certain H-1B workers currently outside the US.
The rule requires petitions to be accompanied or supplemented by “a payment of $100,000”, subject to limited exceptions. The White House has not published India-specific or Telangana-specific figures, so anyone claiming to know the exact local damage is currently charging ahead of the data.
A separate executive order directs US agencies to examine whether sponsoring employers “directly or indirectly engaged in layoffs” in the previous year, or plan layoffs affecting similarly placed US workers. The Labour Department must begin reviewing previously submitted labour-condition applications within 30 days to decide whether “further action against sponsoring employers is warranted”.
The White House says more than 700 petitions have made the payment and that registrations by major IT staffing and outsourcing firms fell 92% after the 2025 measure. Those are administration claims; the underlying datasets were not provided in the documents reviewed. Washington has produced a bill, a review mechanism and several large numbers. The Telangana impact is still waiting for its spreadsheet.