H-1B and L-1 Filing Fee Substantial Increase as Part of $600 Million Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010

Courtesy: www.wga.com

The White House passed the Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010, which the Senate passed it yesterday with amendments. One of the amendments includes the following fee increase for H-1B and L-1. This amendment was sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. The amendment provides the following: 

L-1 Filing Fee and Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Will be Increased by $2,250 for Petitioners Employing 50 or More Employees in the United States and More Than 50% of the employees are H-1B or L-1 Employees 

H-1B Filing Fee and Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Will be Increased by $2,000 for Petitioners Employing 50 or More Employees in the United States and More Than 50% of the employees are H-1B or L-1 Employees.

• • The total filing fees after this legislation will be much higher than these figures in that these employers will also have to pay $1,500 American Worker Training Fees for H-1B petition plus current fraud prevention fee of $500 and I-129 filing fee of $320.
  • The Increased Fee will take effect on the date this bill is enacted into a law by the President's signature and remain in effect until September 30, 2014.
• The bill needs Senate-House Conference and unless the House and Senate leader agree to return to the session during the summer break which ends on 09/14/2010, this bill is not likely enacted into law untill after the Congress returns to the session after the summer break. The amendment will be found in Title IV, Section 402 (a) and (b) of H.R. 5875, as amended by S. 3721. 
• It is sure that will have severe hit hard Indian giant consulting businesses since the employers that will be subject to the increased fees fit primarily Indian businesses such as Wipro, Infosys, Tata, etc. Report indicates that these firms started and will continue to lobby the Congress against this bill from here on.
• The fact that this amendment was introduced by the Chairman of Immigration Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee indicates that probably he intends to smooth out hardline opponents of CIR by showing strong support for border protection and protection of U.S. hi-tech labor markets in the environment of nation's struggling economy and unemployment rate. Please stay tuned.