Saving enough money to pay $100,000 for H-1B visa: Texas whistleblower says legal immigration equally concerning

Texas journalist Sara Gonzales who 'exposed' the H-1B 'scam' in Texas visiting H-1B employers in the state said the $100,000 fee is not going to act as a deterrent as the corporations have saved enough money by paying these employees lesser wages that they can easily spend the fee to hire H-1Bs. The new fee came into effect September 21, 2025. The registration for the H-1B cap for the fiscal year 2027 will open on March 4. All employees registering will have to keep in mind that they will have to pay $100,000 for every selected H-1B candidate.

It is too little, Gonzales said, adding that while everyone is concerned about illegal immigration, what legal immigration is doing is unprecedented and is destroying America. "You have Microsoft, Southwest, which just recently added an outsourcing center in Hyderabad India which is where most of these frauds come from. They are just funneling all of this back into their home country," Gonzales said.







"The $100,000 visa fee is not enough because what's happening is that these companies are bringing these workers in and they are still hiring them at lower wages than American workers. These large corporations want to save the bottom dollar. They will go ahead and snag up all H-1B workers and despite the fact that the Department of Labor has specific conditions that say you have to pay these people what's called a prevailing wage, same as Americans, USCIS is not on top of this," the journalist said.

American companies are undercutting and bringing these H-1Bs, paying them less, and in the process, they are saving enough money that they can afford to pay $100,000 to bring them in. "The whole system stinks. The whole thing is corrupt. America loses in every aspect of it, and we have to fix it," Gonzales said.

On one hand, there is AI and then America is importing people, the Texas journalist said.

Following Gonzales's investigation, Texas froze H-1B hiring in all state agencies and universities and also announced a probe into three firms that hired H-1Bs in the past.