TechTarget features Loren Locke providing guidance to CIOs and technology leaders on immigration strategy.
From the Article
"It's a really great time to form and cultivate a relationship with a reliable lawyer partner."
"One mistake that I'm already seeing is just a limited vision and a limited perspective."
"You can still have whatever worker you want if they're working in a jurisdiction where allowed."
Locke Immigration Law's Take
The TechTarget primer is unusual in the post-September-2025 H-1B landscape because it lays out the actual unit economics of the alternative visa categories side-by-side. O-1 government fees: $460. L-1: $1,385. TN: $500–$10,000 depending on filing path. EB-1: $715. F-1 OPT: ~$530. STEM OPT extends the F-1 work window to 36 months. Compared to a $100,000 H-1B fee, every alternative now sits at one-tenth the cost or less. The pricing change isn't subtle, and it forces a different question: what's the real reason an employer is filing H-1B for any role that could be filed under O-1, L-1, TN, or could wait through OPT?
Loren's "limited vision and limited perspective" warning in the article points at exactly this default-bias trap. Companies that built H-1B-first hiring playbooks over the last ten years are reaching for them again in 2026, even though every parameter has changed. The bias isn't in the data; it's in the playbook. The companies adapting fastest right now have ones we work with regularly: pre-qualifying senior engineering hires for O-1 before they accept the offer, structuring TN-eligible Canadian and Mexican hires through TN where possible, and treating L-1 as the default for any candidate already employed at a foreign affiliate.
The "you can still have whatever worker you want if they're working in a jurisdiction where allowed" line points at the third lever: nearshoring not as a fee-avoidance trick but as a legitimate workforce-distribution strategy. For roles where a US seat isn't operationally required, Canadian and Mexican deployment under remote-work-from-foreign-soil arrangements can be the right answer. The legal posture matters here — there are tax, employment, and PE-risk wrinkles every CIO needs to engage real counsel on — but the option is real and it's increasingly being exercised.
Key Takeaways
- Alternative visa categories cost an order of magnitude less than the new $100K H-1B fee: O-1 ($460), L-1 ($1,385), TN ($500–$10K), EB-1 ($715), F-1 OPT ($530).
- STEM OPT extends F-1 work authorization to 36 months — long enough that "delay H-1B until later" is itself a viable strategy for entry-level hires.
- The default-bias trap: H-1B-first hiring playbooks built over the last decade now misallocate fees that didn't exist before.
- Pre-qualifying senior engineering hires for O-1 before accepting the offer is the highest-leverage adaptation we're seeing employers adopt.
- Foreign-soil deployment ("jurisdiction where allowed") is a legitimate strategy with real tax/employment/PE-risk wrinkles that need counsel.