U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently implemented a sweeping new security vetting process that has effectively paused adjudications across a wide range of immigration case types. Employers and their foreign national employees should understand what this means for pending and future applications, and how to plan accordingly.
What Happened
Beginning April 27, USCIS field and asylum offices across the country began notifying applicants and attorneys that adjudications were subject to a hold while the agency rolls out enhanced fingerprint-based background checks. The change stems from Executive Order 14385, signed February 6, 2026, which directs federal criminal justice agencies to share criminal history record information with the Department of Homeland Security to the full extent permitted by law. In response, the FBI granted USCIS expanded access to its criminal history databases, triggering a requirement that pending cases undergo re-vetting under the new system.
Under the updated protocol, USCIS must resubmit fingerprint information for most pending applications in which biometrics were collected prior to April 27, 2026. In most cases, USCIS will use fingerprints already on file rather than requiring applicants to attend new Application Support Center appointments. Already-scheduled interviews are expected to proceed; however, the issuance of final approvals is largely paused until the new checks are completed.
On April 30, 2026, a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a significant ruling that may affect anyone with a pending immigration benefit application in the United States. In Akmurat O. Doe et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al., Judge Julia E. Kobick found that two sweeping USCIS policies — one placing an indefinite hold on benefit applications from nationals of 39 countries and all asylum seekers (set forth in PM 602-0192 and PM 602-0194), and another treating an applicant’s nationality as a “significant negative factor” in discretionary decisions (announced in PA 2025-26) — are likely unlawful. The court ordered USCIS to immediately lift the adjudicative hold for 22 individual applicants who demonstrated concrete harm, and to stop applying the nationality-based negative factor to their adjustment of status and work authorization applications.
The court’s reasoning is just as important as the immediate result. The court concluded that the adjudicative hold violates federal statutes and USCIS’s own regulations, which require the agency to decide applications for naturalization, asylum, adjustment of status, and work authorization within the frameworks Congress established. It also found that USCIS failed to provide a reasoned explanation for the policy and failed to consider the reliance interests of thousands of applicants whose lives have been placed on indefinite hold. And it held that treating nationality as a negative factor in adjustment of status and work authorization cases violates the Immigration and Nationality Act’s prohibition on nationality-based discrimination in visa issuance.
On March 30, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published an alert providing an important update on the status of adjudication holds that have affected hundreds of thousands of pending immigration applications. If you or your employees have been waiting on a case decision, here is what you need to know.
What Happened?
Over the past year, USCIS placed holds on the processing of several categories of immigration applications as part of a broader effort to strengthen screening and vetting procedures. These holds were implemented through a series of internal policy memoranda — including PM-602-0192 and PM-602-0194 — and affected asylum applications, benefit requests from individuals born in designated high-risk countries, and diversity visa adjustment of status cases. The holds meant that many applicants — and their sponsoring employers — experienced significant delays with no clear timeline for resolution.
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What’s Changing?
The good news is that USCIS has begun selectively lifting holds on certain categories of cases. According to the March 30 alert, holds have been lifted for several groups, including petitions filed by U.S. citizens, intercountry adoption filings, certain special immigrant visa petitions, certain employment authorization document (EAD) applications, and asylum applications from individuals who are not from designated high-risk countries. USCIS also noted that cases reviewed through its enhanced background check program, known as Operation PARRIS, are being cleared for adjudication.
However, this is not a blanket resumption of processing. USCIS emphasized that it is reviewing cases on both an individual and group basis and will continue lifting holds as it deems appropriate. Many cases — particularly those involving applicants from the 39 countries identified under Executive Order 14161 as having inadequate screening and vetting standards — may remain on hold for the foreseeable future.
A Note for Asylum Applicants
While USCIS has lifted holds on asylum applications filed by individuals from non-high-risk countries, asylum applicants who are nationals of the 39 countries covered by Presidential Proclamations 10949 and 10998 should be aware that the travel ban and associated adjudication holds remain firmly in effect. These 39 countries are divided into two categories. The 19 countries subject to a full suspension of entry — meaning both immigrant and nonimmigrant visa entry is barred — are: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Individuals traveling on Palestinian Authority-issued documents are also subject to the full suspension. The 20 countries subject to a partial suspension — barring immigrant visa entry and certain nonimmigrant visa categories — are: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. If you are an asylum applicant from any of these countries, your case likely remains on hold, and you should consult with an immigration attorney to understand your options.
What Should You Do?
For foreign nationals and employers with pending applications, the key takeaway is to stay informed and monitor your case status through the USCIS Case Status Online portal. If you have a pending EAD application and are experiencing delays that affect your ability to work, consult with your immigration attorney about whether your case falls within one of the categories where holds have been lifted. Employers should likewise coordinate with counsel to understand the potential impact on their workforce and to plan accordingly for continued processing delays.
We will continue to monitor developments from USCIS and provide updates as more information becomes available.
The FY 2027 H-1B lottery is complete, and USCIS has notified selected registrants. If you are an employer preparing to file an H-1B petition for a selected candidate — or a foreign national whose registration was selected — you should be aware of a major change that affects how petitions are evaluated this year. The filing window is now open, and getting it right starts with understanding what must remain consistent from registration through petition filing.
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A New System: The Wage-Weighted Lottery
Starting with the FY 2027 cap season, USCIS replaced the traditional random H-1B lottery with a wage-weighted selection process. Under the new final rule (effective February 27, 2026), each registration receives a number of entries based on the offered salary’s corresponding wage level — with higher-paid positions receiving more entries and a greater chance of selection. Because wage and work location now directly determine a candidate’s odds in the lottery, the details an employer provides at registration carry real legal weight.
What Must Stay the Same?
USCIS has stated clearly that the H-1B petition “must contain and be supported by the same identifying information and position information as the selected registration.” In practical terms, this means the following should remain consistent from registration through petition filing:
The offered wage and wage level. The salary and the corresponding OEWS (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) wage level used to weight the registration must match what appears on the petition and the certified Labor Condition Application (LCA).
The SOC (occupational) code. The job classification should not change.
The work location. The area of intended employment listed at registration should be the same on the LCA and petition.
Petitioners must also submit evidence — such as a printout from the DOL OFLC Wage Search website — showing the basis for the wage level selected as of the date the registration was submitted.
What Happens if the Wage or Location Changes?
USCIS’s new process integrity provisions give the agency explicit authority to scrutinize mismatches between a registration and the later-filed petition. If USCIS determines that an employer inflated a wage level or listed a particular work location to improve selection odds — and then changed the terms after selection — the petition may be denied or revoked. Even a legitimate business change, such as a corporate relocation, can raise red flags if it results in a lower applicable wage level than what was listed at registration.
Practical Steps for Employers
To reduce risk, employers should:
Preserve registration-date wage documentation. Save a copy of the OFLC wage data for the relevant occupation and location as of the registration date.
Document any legitimate changes. If business circumstances genuinely require a change in wage or worksite between registration and filing, prepare a written explanation with supporting evidence and include it with the petition.
Consult immigration counsel early. An experienced attorney can help assess whether a post-registration change poses compliance risk and advise on the best path forward.
A Note for Selected Foreign Nationals
If you were selected in the FY 2027 lottery, the key takeaway is straightforward: your employer should be filing a petition that reflects the same job, salary, and location used in your registration. This consistency requirement is designed to protect the integrity of the process and does not create a new burden on you as the beneficiary. If your employer’s circumstances have changed, encourage them to work with qualified counsel to address any discrepancies before filing.
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Immigration rules are complex and change frequently. If you have questions about your specific situation, we strongly encourage you to consult a Duane Morris immigration attorney.
On March 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would substantially revise the methodology for calculating prevailing wages under the H-1B, H-1B1, E-3, and PERM (Permanent Labor Certification) programs. If finalized, the proposed rule would represent one of the most significant changes to H-1B and PERM wage requirements in over two decades, with entry-level salary requirements potentially increasing by more than 30%. The rule was published in the Federal Register on March 27, 2026, and carries a 60-day public comment period. The Duane Morris Immigration group has reviewed the proposal, and below we outline the key details of the proposal and practical steps employers should consider in response.
Overview of the Proposed Changes
The DOL currently uses a four-tiered prevailing wage structure based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey. The proposed rule retains this four-tier framework but significantly raises the percentile thresholds used to set each wage level. Under the current methodology, which has been in place since 2005, the Level I (entry-level) wage is set at the 17th percentile of the OEWS wage distribution for a given occupation and geographic area. The DOL contends that this threshold is far too low and does not accurately reflect the wages of similarly employed U.S. workers.
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The proposed wage levels are as follows:
Wage Level
Current Percentile
Proposed Percentile
Level I (Entry)
17th percentile
34th percentile
Level II (Qualified)
34th percentile
52nd percentile
Level III (Experienced)
50th percentile
70th percentile
Level IV (Fully Competent)
67th percentile
88th percentile
Under the proposed regulatory text, the Level I wage would be anchored at the 34th percentile and the Level IV wage at the 88th percentile, with Levels II and III calculated using the statutory formula that divides the difference between Levels I and IV by three. Based on the DOL’s analysis of prevailing wages data from fiscal years 2020 through 2024, the agency estimates that the proposed adjustments would increase the average certified wage by approximately $14,000 per year per worker.
Who Would Be Affected
The proposed rule would apply broadly to employers sponsoring foreign workers under several visa categories. H-1B employers would constitute the largest affected group by far, but the rule would also affect H-1B1 employers sponsoring nationals of Chile and Singapore, E-3 employers sponsoring nationals of Australia, and employers pursuing PERM labor certification for EB-2 and EB-3 employment-based green cards.
Applicability and Timing
Importantly, the proposed rule would not apply retroactively. The new wage levels, if finalized, would apply only to prevailing wage determination applications pending with the OFLC National Processing Center as of the effective date, as well as to new Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) and prevailing wage requests filed on or after that date. Existing permanent labor certifications, approved LCAs, and previously approved PERM prevailing wage determinations would not be affected.
Employers should also note that H-1B cap petitions for fiscal year 2027, which must be filed by June 30, 2026, are expected to remain unaffected, as LCAs would have been filed prior to the rule’s anticipated effective date.
Private Wage Surveys Remain Available – For Now
The DOL considered eliminating the ability for employers to use private wage surveys as an alternative to OEWS-based prevailing wages but ultimately chose not to do so in this rulemaking. The proposed rule preserves employer flexibility to rely on acceptable alternative wage survey data, provided regulatory criteria are met. However, the DOL indicated that it intends to monitor the use of private surveys to prevent abuse and reserves the right to reject surveys that do not meet its methodological standards.
Broader Policy Context
This proposed rule does not exist in isolation. It is part of a broader set of regulatory and policy measures by the current administration aimed at raising the costs and qualifications associated with employing H-1B workers. These include the weighted selection process for the annual H-1B cap lottery, which now favors beneficiaries offered higher wages, and the $100,000 fee imposed on certain H-1B petitions by the September 2025 Presidential Proclamation. The current NPRM was itself prompted, in part, by the September 2025 Presidential Proclamation directing the Secretary of Labor to initiate rulemaking to revise prevailing wage levels.
The proposal also revives a similar initiative from the first Trump administration. In October 2020, the DOL issued an interim final rule, which in January 2021 it published as a final rule. This rule would have set comparable wage levels (Level I at the 35th percentile, Level IV at the 90th percentile), but that rule was challenged in court on procedural reasons and ultimately vacated. The Biden administration did not pursue further rulemaking on prevailing wages, making this the first formal proposal since the 2021 rule was vacated.
Steps Employers Should Consider
In light of this significant proposed change, employers who rely on H-1B, H-1B1, E-3, or PERM programs should consider taking the following steps.
First, employers should review their current foreign national workforce and identify positions classified at Level I or Level II, where the proposed increases would be most pronounced. Understanding by how much current offered wages exceed the proposed new floors will help gauge financial exposure.
Second, employers should evaluate the potential impact of the new rule once finalized on upcoming H-1B filings and PERM labor certification cases and revise compensation structures and budgets as needed. Given employers’ exposure to employee complaints and discrimination claims if they favor foreign workers over US workers, this rule could force employers using the H1B program to adjust upward its compensation structure for all employees, not just H1B workers. Likewise, for employers in states with pay transparency laws requiring salary ranges as part of recruitment efforts, this rule may result in wage inflation for its workforce as the low end of any salary range must equal or exceed the prevailing wage level determined by the DOL.
Third, employers should consider whether submitting public comments during the 60-day comment period would be advisable. The DOL is specifically soliciting feedback on whether the proposed percentiles appropriately reflect statutory requirements, the viability of an alternative “Experience Benchmarking” methodology, the continued use of private wage surveys, and any data sources that could improve wage-setting accuracy. Data-supported comments carry more weight in the rulemaking process, and employer coalitions and industry associations may coordinate responses.
Conclusion
While the proposed rule is not yet final and must undergo notice-and-comment rulemaking before taking effect, its direction is clear: the DOL intends to significantly raise the wage floor for foreign workers in the H-1B and PERM programs. Employers should treat this as a near-term planning issue rather than a distant possibility, as the comment window is relatively short and final implementation could follow within months. Duane Morris will continue to monitor this rulemaking and provide updates as the process unfolds. Our immigration attorneys are available to answer any questions about the impact of this proposed rule alongside other recent changes to the H-1B program, including the weighted lottery and the new petition fee, and to evaluate employer-specific considerations in order to develop a comprehensive workforce strategy.
This is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance on how this proposed rule may affect your organization, please contact a member of the Duane Morris immigration practice group.
If you hold a U.S. visa — or are planning to apply for one — you may have heard that the number of visa revocations has surged dramatically. The State Department revoked more than 100,000 visas in 2025, a roughly 150% increase over the approximately 40,000 revoked in 2024. That is not a small shift; it represents a fundamental change in how aggressively the U.S. government is monitoring visa holders and enforcing compliance. Whether you are an international worker, a student, or a frequent traveler, understanding why visas get revoked — and how to prepare if it happens to you — has never been more important.
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has announced a temporary pause on the issuance of immigrant visas for nationals of certain countries as part of a comprehensive review of public charge-related policies and guidance. This action follows recent executive directives emphasizing that intending immigrants must demonstrate financial self-sufficiency and avoid reliance on public benefits in the United States.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has issued an interim final rule eliminating the automatic extension of employment authorization documents (EADs) for most noncitizens who timely file renewal applications. This policy change will apply to EAD renewal applications filed on or after October 30, 2025.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has recently issued a series of changes in policy and practice that could make it significantly harder for some people to acquire U.S. citizenship and lengthen the processing times for all applicants. While there have only been isolated anecdotal reports of changes so far in how naturalization interviews are being conducted, we expect more noticeable changes in the coming months. Similarly, on August 19, 2025, USCIS announced updates to its policy manual expanding officers’ discretionary authority for certain immigration benefits requests, directing them to give “significant negative discretionary weight” for “anti-American” ideologies or activities.
President Trump’s Gold Card is now sounding a lot more like a green card (lawful permanent residence).
The Executive Order (EO) issued on Friday, September 19, 2025 – https://lnkd.in/e5_9j3Se – relies on existing green card categories for those making a gift of $1 million to the United States under 15 U.S.C. 1522: the so-called EB1A for persons of extraordinary ability and the EB2 for those whose presence in the United States is in the national interest. For companies making a gift on behalf of an individual, the minimum is $2 million.
The Departments of Homeland Security of State, which bear responsibility for immigration functions, and the Department of Commerce, which is responsible for accepting the gifts, have 90 days to implement the Executive Order. These Departments are also ordered to consider expanding the Gold Card to the EB5 green card category for investors.
Gold Card applicants will, like other green card applicants, face annual quotas set statutorily by Congress. The EB1 and EB2 categories are currently both backlogged for those born in India and Mainland China.
Once approved, Gold Card holders, like other lawful permanent residents, will be US tax residents subject to income tax on their global income. The Trump Administration tacitly acknowledges this in its Trump Card website at https://trumpcard.gov/, which now also presents the option of a Platinum Card in addition to the Gold Card.
As currently presented, the Platinum Card will be available for a $5 million contribution, allowing Platinum Card holders to spend up to 270 days per year in the United States without being subject to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. income. Presumably the Platinum Card will be a temporary (nonimmigrant) visa rather than permanent residence, with changes to the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury Regulations needed to exempt Platinum Card holders from the current substantial presence test, under which those without green cards are still taxed as US tax residents if they spend sufficient time in the United States. The EO issued on Friday does not address the Platinum Card at all.
