The $100,000 H-1B entry payment remains blocked by the courts and is not being collected, but the midterm elections have brought no quick relief for visa holders, immigration lawyers say. The H-1B fee fight now turns on appeals and agency rules that Congress alone cannot undo.
Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress on November 3, and the first question from Indian tech workers was blunt: does this help H-1B visa holders? The short answer is not yet. The $100,000 payment, the wage-weighted lottery and India’s tariff rate came from a presidential proclamation, a Department of Homeland Security rule and trade orders, not from votes in Congress, so an election alone does not undo them. Indian professionals receive about 71 percent of approved H-1B petitions, according to figures cited by VisaVerge.
Fee Blocked, But Not Gone
Proclamation 11069, signed on September 18, 2026 and running until September 21, 2027, restricts entry for H-1B specialty-occupation workers. On September 30, 2026, a federal court in the Northern District of California vacated the agency policies that carry out the payment and barred enforcement until required rulemaking is completed. USCIS has said it will comply with the order and would collect the payment if the order is lifted. For now the payment is unenforceable, but that could change quickly on appeal, and employers should not assume it is gone for good.
Appeal briefs were due on November 4 in the First Circuit and November 6 in the Ninth Circuit. A separate comment period ends on November 13, 2026 on a proposed rule that would remove general deference to some prior eligibility approvals. The End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, introduced by Senators Tim Sheehy and Bernie Moreno with a House companion, would pause new H-1B issuance for three years, but it has not passed.
Weighted Lottery Still in Force
The wage-weighted lottery is in effect since February 27, 2026 under a DHS final rule published on December 29, 2025. Under the system, registrations at wage Level IV enter the pool four times, Level III three times, Level II twice and Level I once. Federal Register estimates put selection odds at about 15.29 percent for a Level I registration, compared with an average of 29.5 percent under the old random system. USCIS has not announced the FY2028 registration window yet, although registration is expected in March 2027, with the FY2027 fee at $215 per registration.
The green-card queue is similarly untouched. The State Department’s November 2026 Visa Bulletin lists India’s employment-based second-preference final action date as November 1, 2013, and the third-preference date as January 22, 2014. The election does not move those dates. For more on the lame-duck session, see our report on the lame-duck Congress funding fight heading to December 11 and US debt hitting $40 trillion as the ceiling deadline looms.
