infoPresident Obama signed Bill H.R. 6080 into law (Public Law 111-230) on August 13, 2010 and this H.R. 6080 is now also known as the new "Border Security Act" which allocated increased funding to various government agencies to help secure our border. Under Title IV of the Act, some new filing fee hikes are also authorized for certain H and L visa petitions, as additional measures to raise money.

Specifically, under the new law, the filing fees and the visa fraud prevention & detection fees for both L and H visa petitions are raised by over two thousand dollars for certain petitioners who have more than 50 employees in the US if more than 50% of the employees are on L or H-1B visas respectively. This will definitely impose greater financial burden onto certain small to medium sized businesses, especially in the high tech industries such as IT support and/or Telecommunication industries that heavily utilize, if not depend upon, foreign born engineers and programmers.

The actual increases are:

  1. $2,250 more for L visa applicants; and,
  2. $2,000 more for H visa applicants.
  3. This fee increase is a temporary measure set to end on September 30, 2014.

USCIS is scheduled to release a public announcement at 1PM Eastern Time tomorrow (on Aug. 19, 2010) on the implementation details including the starting date of these two filing fee hikes as authorized by the Act. Yu, South & Associates will update you in real time when the information is available.

If you have any questions about this article or the new law or you simply have a comment or a general question about the US immigration law, you are encouraged to email us directly to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and our experienced immigration attorneys will respond to your inquiries personally and promptly, usually within 24 hours, if not sooner.

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