WASHINGTON, D.C. — When a federal judge struck down the administration’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee in June, declaring it unlawful “in its entirety,” the White House did not retreat. It went to the hardware store.

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a new fee of $103,265 for every cap-subject H-1B petition — $3,265 taller than the version the courts rejected, and by the administration’s own accounting, substantially more useful. The fee was first struck down by a federal judge in June; the new proposal was filed this week, through the regulatory process, where it will presumably be admired by people who have read all 312 pages of it.

The original fee, announced last September, was a blunt instrument: $100,000 per petition, period. The new proposal carries the same price with a small adjustment for what one official described as “inflation and the dignity of the transaction.” DHS said the revenue would fund immigration adjudications, fraud detection, national security vetting, labor compliance enforcement, visa screening, immigration court operations, and border-related biometric systems — seven uses, up from zero, which is how the administration characterizes its progress.

"The judge struck down the fee. We came back with the same fee, just $3,265 better."

The court loss itself, the administration has made clear, is a credential. The review process is the visa system working as intended, one official explained. Every fee the administration has proposed has now been tested by a judge, and every fee has come back stronger. That is not a track record of litigation. That is a track record.

The specificity of the number is doing a lot of work. $103,265 is not a round number, and round numbers are where the fakes live. An immigration attorney who has represented both sides of this debate called the new figure “so precise, it must be accurate,” before adding that he would very much like to know what $3,265 buys, exactly. DHS declined to itemize the difference, calling it a market adjustment. Nonprofit institutions are exempt, a detail the administration described as “compassion, itemized.”

THE FEE, LINE BY LINE

  • Original fee: $100,000, announced last September
  • Court's verdict: "unlawful, in its entirety"
  • New proposal: $103,265, filed this week
  • The difference: $3,265, "inflation-adjusted"
  • Uses of the money: seven, including border biometrics
  • Exemptions: nonprofit institutions
  • Administration's response to the ruling: "See you in court"

The tech industry, for its part, has been unusually calm. Several major employers have already budgeted for the new fee. One CIO said his company would treat the $3,265 difference “like a round-up, the way you’d tip at a restaurant, except the restaurant is the government and the meal was the ability to hire engineers.”

At press time, DHS said the public comment period would run “as long as it takes,” and a senior official added that the administration is “always listening.” The fee, he said, “is not a punishment. It’s a handshake. A very expensive handshake.”