Visa & Immigration Update

President Trump signed an Executive Order on 18 September directing the Departments of Homeland Security, Labor and State to consider whether a sponsoring employer has conducted layoffs within the previous year, or plans future layoffs affecting similarly situated US workers, when adjudicating any H-1B petition, visa application, application for admission or Labor Condition Application. Agencies must also weigh a broad set of federal economic data, including wage, industry and employment specialisation figures from the Departments of Commerce and Education and the Small Business Administration.

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division has 30 days to begin reviewing LCAs that have already been submitted and decide whether enforcement action is warranted. Scope is the detail that matters most here: the Order covers every H-1B sponsoring employer, not only H-1B dependent employers or willful violators.

On the same day, a separate proclamation extended the 100,000 dollar payment requirement for certain H-1B petitions by another year, through 21 September 2027, subject to narrow national interest exceptions. Both measures come against the backdrop of ongoing litigation over that fee, which had partially reduced its enforceability earlier this year.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced a comprehensive migration overhaul at the National Press Club on 17 September, organised under three headings: who arrives, who stays and who leaves. The government is now treating its budget forecasts for net overseas migration as firm targets rather than projections.

Most student and graduate visa holders will no longer be able to include family members as secondary applicants. Exemptions are preserved for PhD students and for applicants from Pacific and ASEAN countries, and existing visa holders who already have family members attached are not affected.

Every future visitor visa will carry condition 8503, No Further Stay, closing the onshore visa hopping pathway. The Working Holiday Maker Program will introduce a ballot for second and third year visas, with a regional work requirement attached. Ministerial Direction 119 will be expanded to prioritise skilled visa processing across healthcare, construction, education, law enforcement, defence, resources, agriculture, aquaculture and fishing.

All of this is being delivered through regulation rather than legislation, so none of it has to pass Parliament and measures can commence at short notice. Specific commencement dates have not been published for most of them, and a rolling rollout is expected over the next 12 months.

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on 14 September, postponing the effective date of the DHS Final Rule that would have replaced duration of status admissions with fixed periods of admission for F, J and I nonimmigrants. The rule had been scheduled to take effect on 15 September.

The court found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on their APA claims, concluding that DHS had failed to adequately analyse costs and benefits, meaningfully consider alternatives, respond to significant public comments, and establish a rational connection between the rule and its stated objectives.

DHS is now barred from any further action to implement the rule while Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration v. DHS continues. The case is not resolved: a status conference is set for 2 October, and the government is expected to appeal. For now, F, J and I nonimmigrants continue to be admitted for duration of status as before, and USCIS has not withdrawn the revised 09/15/26 editions of Forms I-539 and I-765.

Venezuela's immigration authorities introduced a new electronic, multiple entry visa on 15 September called the PRO-V-90. It allows stays of up to 90 days for foreign nationals carrying out eligible professional activities without an employer, or at a Venezuelan company's invitation to provide a specialised service.

One condition defines the category. The applicant cannot have an employment relationship with the inviting Venezuelan company and cannot receive employment based compensation from it. The visa is built for consultants, technical specialists and overseas company representatives whose employers have clients in Venezuela but no local legal entity there.

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