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Long Island Work Visa Attorney: H1B and Employment Immigration

Last Updated on: 11th October 2025, 11:05 am

Long Island Work Visa Attorney: H1B and Employment Immigration

Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group. We’re a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek, with over 40 years of combined experience handling immigration cases that others won’t touch. You’ve probably heard about some of our work – Todd represented Anna Delvey in the Netflix series, handled the Ghislaine Maxwell juror misconduct case, and defended Alec Baldwin’s stalker. Those weren’t easy cases. Neither is yours.

This article covers what you need to know about H-1B visas and employment immigration in 2025 – the new $100,000 fee that just hit in September, why most petitions get hit with Requests for Evidence, and what Long Island employers keep getting wrong. If you’re reading this, you’re either trying to sponsor someone or you’re stuck in the H-1B lottery mess. Either way, you need to understand how the system actually works right now.

The $100,000 H-1B Fee Nobody Saw Coming

On September 19, 2025, everything changed. President Trump signed a proclamation that slapped a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions submitted after 12:01 a.m. on September 21, 2025. This isn’t a rumor or a proposal – it’s live, it’s enforceable, and it applies to the 2026 lottery.

But there’s confusion everywhere about who actually pays this fee. If you submitted your petition before September 21, you’re grandfathered in. If you’re renewing an existing H-1B, you don’t pay the $100,000. This fee hits new petitions only – first-time H-1B applications for workers who don’t already have H-1B status.

The proclamation includes a national interest exemption. The Secretary of Homeland Security can waive the fee for certain workers, companies, or industries if it serves the national interest. What qualifies? Nobody knows yet. USCIS hasn’t published guidance on what “national interest” actually means in this context, so employers are filing petitions without knowing if they’ll qualify for a waiver.

Here’s what this means if you’re a Long Island employer trying to bring in specialized talent. You’re looking at the $100,000 fee, plus the $460 base filing fee, plus the $500 fraud detection fee, plus potentially the $2,805 premium processing fee if you need a fast decision. That’s over $103,000 before you even talk to an immigration attorney. Small and mid-sized companies are getting priced out of the H-1B program entirely.

Why H-1B Petitions Get Requests for Evidence

USCIS issued RFEs on about 60% of H-1B petitions back in 2019. That number dropped significantly – the RFE rate in 2025 is less than half that. But when you get an RFE, you’ve got 60 days to respond or USCIS makes a decision with whatever evidence they already have. That usually means denial.

The most common RFE issue is specialty occupation. USCIS questions whether the job actually requires a bachelor’s degree or higher in a specific field. Let’s say you’re hiring a “Business Analyst.” USCIS looks at that title and asks: does this really need a degree in a specific specialty? If the job duties could be performed by someone with a general business degree, or by someone with work experience but no degree, they’ll issue an RFE demanding more evidence.

The employer-employee relationship issue comes up constantly with IT consulting companies and third-party placements. You’re sponsoring someone who’ll work at a client site, not your office. USCIS wants proof you’ll actually supervise this person, control their work, pay their salary, and have the right to fire them. They want contracts with the end client, detailed job descriptions, org charts showing the reporting structure. If you’re placing someone at a third-party worksite and you haven’t documented the employment relationship meticulously, expect an RFE.

Beneficiary qualifications trigger RFEs when there’s a degree mismatch. Your candidate has a degree in Mechanical Engineering but you’re sponsoring them for a Software Developer position. USCIS will ask how that degree qualifies them for this job. Or maybe your candidate has a three-year bachelor’s degree from another country plus work experience to make up the difference. USCIS scrutinizes degree equivalencies hard – they want to see detailed credential evaluations explaining how the education and experience combine to equal a U.S. bachelor’s degree in the relevant field.

Employer Compliance Issues That Destroy H-1B Cases

The Labor Condition Application is where most employers screw up. You can’t file an H-1B petition without a certified LCA from the Department of Labor. The LCA requires you to attest to four things: you’ll pay the required wage, you’ll provide working conditions that won’t adversely affect U.S. workers, there’s no strike or lockout at the worksite, and you’ve notified workers about the H-1B hire.

The wage requirement trips up Long Island employers constantly. You must pay the H-1B worker either the actual wage you pay similarly qualified workers or the prevailing wage for that occupation in that geographic area – whichever is higher. If you’re paying your existing employees $85,000 for the same role, you can’t offer the H-1B worker $70,000 just because the prevailing wage is $70,000. You pay the actual wage.

Posting requirements aren’t suggestions. You must post the LCA in two conspicuous locations at the worksite within 30 days before filing it, and it stays posted for 10 days minimum. “Conspicuous” means places where employees actually see it – break rooms, time clocks, main entrances. Taping it to the inside of a supply closet doesn’t count. If you’re a remote-first company, you post it electronically where employees access company announcements.

The Public Access File requirement catches employers off guard. You need a physical or electronic file for each H-1B worker containing the LCA, proof of posting, the prevailing wage determination, documentation showing the actual wage paid to the H-1B worker, and proof you provided the worker with a copy of the LCA. This file must be available for public inspection and maintained for one year beyond the employment period or one year from LCA withdrawal. When DOL shows up for an audit – and they do show up – they want to see this file immediately.

What happens when you violate LCA requirements? DOL can impose civil penalties up to $35,000 per violation, debar you from future H-1B and other immigration programs for up to three years, and require you to pay back wages. USCIS can revoke approved H-1B petitions. Your H-1B worker loses status and has to leave the country.

The H-1B Lottery Reality in 2025

USCIS ran the FY 2026 lottery earlier this year. They selected 114,017 beneficiaries in the first round and another 13,607 in a second drawing. Total registrations dropped to 343,981 – down 38.6% from the previous year. That massive drop came from the new beneficiary-centric selection process designed to stop fraud.

Before 2025, companies were gaming the system by filing multiple registrations for the same person through different entities. Someone would have five or six registrations in the lottery, multiplying their odds while legitimate single registrations had lower chances. The beneficiary-centric approach assigns one lottery number per person regardless of how many employers register them. If that number gets selected, all employers who registered that person can file a petition.

Your odds in the FY 2025 lottery were roughly 30% if you had a U.S. master’s degree or higher, slightly lower with just a bachelor’s degree. That’s better than previous years, but it still means 70% of registrations don’t get selected. And the $100,000 fee for new petitions in September 2025 is going to suppress registration numbers even more dramatically for FY 2027.

What do you do if you don’t get selected? You wait for a second lottery if USCIS doesn’t receive enough petitions to meet the cap. You explore cap-exempt H-1B options – universities, nonprofit research organizations, government research facilities don’t count against the 65,000 annual cap. You look at alternative visas: L-1 for intracompany transfers if the beneficiary worked for your foreign office for at least one year, O-1 for individuals with extraordinary ability, E-2 treaty investor visas if the beneficiary is from a treaty country and will work for a substantial investment enterprise.

Processing Times and When Premium Processing Matters

Standard H-1B processing takes 4.5 to 6 months from petition filing to decision. That timeline assumes no RFE. If USCIS issues an RFE, add another 60 days for you to respond plus additional processing time for them to review your response and make a final decision. You’re looking at eight to ten months total in RFE cases.

Premium processing costs $2,805 and guarantees a decision within 15 business days. USCIS will approve, deny, or issue an RFE within that window. If they don’t meet the 15-day deadline, they refund the premium processing fee – but that almost never happens.

When is premium processing worth the cost? When the beneficiary needs to start work immediately and you’ve already got a selected registration. When you’re doing a change of status and the beneficiary’s current status is expiring soon. When you’re amending an H-1B due to a worksite change and the employee needs to start at the new location right away. When you need certainty fast and can’t afford to wait six months wondering if USCIS will approve the petition.

Premium processing doesn’t guarantee approval. It guarantees speed. If your petition has issues – weak specialty occupation evidence, questionable employer-employee relationship, degree mismatch – you’ll get an RFE in 15 days instead of four months. Then you’re back to standard processing timelines for the RFE response review.

Why You Need an Immigration Attorney Who Knows What They’re Doing

At Spodek Law Group, we handle employment immigration cases across Long Island and throughout New York. We’ve been doing this since 1976 – representing thousands of clients through multiple presidential administrations and policy changes. When Trump’s $100,000 H-1B fee hit in September 2025, we already had strategies in place for our clients because we saw the policy signals months earlier.

Our immigration attorneys know how to build H-1B petitions that survive USCIS scrutiny. We document specialty occupation requirements with industry reports, expert opinions, and detailed job descriptions that map duties to degree requirements. We structure employer-employee relationships for third-party placements with ironclad contracts and supervisory frameworks. We prepare comprehensive RFE responses that address USCIS concerns completely the first time.

We don’t take every case. If we don’t think we can help you get the outcome you need, we’ll tell you upfront. That’s different from other immigration firms that bill you for work they know won’t succeed. If we’re working with you, it’s because we believe we can make a positive impact on your case.

If you’re dealing with H-1B issues – whether you’re an employer trying to sponsor workers or a foreign national stuck in immigration limbo – reach out to us. We’re available 24/7 because immigration emergencies don’t happen during business hours. The worst thing you can do is wait and hope the problem fixes itself. It won’t.