Name: DHS Overhauls H-1B Visa Lottery to Favor Skilled Workers
Uploaded: 2025-12-24T06:14:13.000Z
Description: The Department of Homeland Security is overhauling the H-1B visa program in an attempt to stamp out abuse.

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The Department of Homeland Security is overhauling the H-1B visa program in an attempt to stamp out abuse.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the new regulations on Dec. 23. The new regulations establish a weighted lottery for H-1B applicants that puts higher-paid and higher-skilled applicants ahead of lower-paid ones. The new rules aim to cut down on abuse by companies that use the visa program to undercut American workers and wages.

“The existing random selection process of H-1B registrations was exploited and abused by U.S. employers who were primarily seeking to import foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay American workers,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-changes-process-for-awarding-h-1b-work-visas-to-better-protect-american-workers">said</a> in a press release on the USCIS website.

“The new weighted selection will better serve Congress’ intent for the H-1B program and strengthen America’s competitiveness by incentivizing American employers to petition for higher-paid, higher-skilled foreign workers. With these regulatory changes and others in the future, we will continue to update the H-1B program to help American businesses without allowing the abuse that was harming American workers.”

Current law caps the number of H-1B visa allocations at 65,000 annually, with another 20,000 allocations for applicants with graduate and advanced degrees. In years where the number of applicants exceeds the available visas—the final rule notes that "demand for H-1B visas has exceeded the annual supply for more than a decade"—they are awarded based on a random lottery.

Under the <a href="https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-23853.pdf">new regulations</a>, each H-1B applicant will be placed into a pool. The lottery will be weighted according to the proffered salary, compared to prevailing wage levels in a particular occupational field, based on data from the Department of Labor's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program. An applicant whose wage corresponds to wage level IV, the highest level, will be entered into the pool 4 times; an applicant whose wage corresponds to wage level III will be entered into the pool 3 times; an applicant with a level II wage will be entered 2 times; and an applicant with a level I wage will be entered once.

The new regulations also allow DHS to deny applications or revoke approved visas if the employer or the visa applicant misrepresent wage information in a new or amended petition. They can also impose sanctions on employers that misrepresent wage data or fail to pay the proffered wage.

The new regulations will take effect during the registration period for fiscal year 2027.

DHS states that the changes will incentivize employers to offer higher wages or to petition for jobs that are higher-skilled and higher-paying. A previous proposed regulation would have ranked visas based on the prevailing wage level and awarded them based on those rankings, making it likely that lower-paid applicants would not have been selected. DHS claims the final rule is better because it will still give those lower-paid applicants who may still have important skills the opportunity to be awarded visas, while disincentivizing companies from using H-1B to artificially suppress wages.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) recently highlighted a number of <a href="https://x.com/SenEricSchmitt/status/2000595140067696849?s=20">abuses</a> of the program on X, pointing out a number of examples of companies using the program to lay off American workers and replace them with H-1B recipients. In another post, Schmitt noted how companies abuse the program with <a href="https://x.com/Eric_Schmitt/status/1998147700538183751?s=20">low-paying and low-skilled jobs</a>.

In addition to the new lottery system, the Trump administration is imposing new restrictions on visa applicants. Earlier this month, the State Department announced it would add an "<a href="https://www.ntd.com/state-department-to-require-social-media-review-for-h-1b-visa-applicants_1111732.html">online presence review</a>" to new H-1B applications. The administration has also added a <a href="https://www.ntd.com/trump-adds-100000-fee-for-h-1b-visas-launches-new-gold-card-visa_1091821.html">$100,000 fee</a> to applications, but that policy is being challenged in court.

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DHS Overhauls H-1B Visa Lottery to Favor Skilled Workers

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