A federal judge has struck down President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, potentially rolling back one of the Administration’s hallmark immigration policies.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston ruled that the fee, which affects employers sponsoring highly skilled foreign workers, acted as an unlawful tax that Trump does not have the authority to impose. Sorokin’s decision vacated “in its entirety” the Trump Administration’s policy from September that raised the cost for companies applying for an H-1B petition from a few thousand dollars to more than $100,000. The Administration had announced the fee in a proclamation, claiming that the H-1B program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
A coalition of 20 Democratic state attorneys general had filed a lawsuit in December challenging the policy change.
In legal arguments, the Administration said that the fee was a “penalty” aimed at restricting the entry of certain foreign nationals into the U.S., which the President has the authority to do under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act if their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
Sorokin, however, determined that the fee instead functioned as a tax, which the President cannot issue without authorization from Congress. Sorokin, a Barack Obama-appointee, pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision in February to strike down the bulk of Trump’s tariffs, concluding that Trump did not have the authority to impose them. The Trump Administration did not seek congressional approval for the H-1B fee.
The Trump Administration intends to appeal the decision, according to White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
“President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is exactly what he did,” Rogers said in a statement to media outlets.
The H-1B program provides 65,000 visas per year to highly skilled workers, meaning applicants with at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, to work in specialized professions. Another 20,000 visas are allotted annually through the program to foreign nationals holding advanced degrees. The visa is valid for three years and can be renewed for another three years.
“Today a court put an end to this administration’s illegal attempt to destroy this critical program and the many jobs it makes possible,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who co-led the coalition behind the lawsuit, said in a statement on Monday. “Workers with these visas contribute immensely to our state, and I will keep fighting to stop this administration’s unjust and unlawful attacks on our immigrant communities.”
Sorokin’s decision deals a significant blow to the Trump Administration’s aggressive campaign to curb both legal and illegal immigration. During Trump’s second term so far, his Administration has pursued a mass deportation campaign that has sparked public protests and diplomatic blowback; targeted migrants on legal visas in the U.S., including by detaining, deporting, and revoking the visas of international students, imposing sweeping travel bans, and increasing scrutiny of applicants and holders of student visas, tourist visas, and green cards; and pursued denaturalization proceedings against some American citizens and threatened it against political rivals.
The $100,000 H-1B fee was met with backlash, particularly from the tech sector, which relies heavily on highly skilled foreign workers. Economists and executives raised concerns that the restriction would harm American innovation and global competitiveness, especially at a time when China is gradually opening up to more foreign talent and investing heavily into research and development in artificial intelligence, space, and critical technologies.
“This tax was an attack on America’s ability to attract and retain the high-skilled talent that strengthens our economy and helps us meet critical workforce needs,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who co-led the plaintiff coalition, said on Monday.
The policy faced multiple legal challenges, including an ongoing appeals case by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after a judge in Washington, D.C., ruled in December that Trump did have the authority to impose the fee. A coalition of healthcare organizations, labor unions, and individual workers also filed a lawsuit challenging the fee in October, which is still pending in federal court in California.
Prior to the change, companies typically paid between $2,000 and $5,000 to apply for an H-1B. Plaintiffs argued that the new fee would have been prohibitive for many companies to hire new foreign workers. While the fee did not apply to foreign nationals already in the U.S. on student visas or existing H-1B holders, some foreign nationals found their employment offers withdrawn or faced hiring freezes during the initial uncertainty around the policy. The Trump Administration began carving out exemptions to the fee, including for doctors and medical residents, after healthcare employers complained that the policy would strain a sector already facing labor shortages.
By mid-February, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had received only 85 payments of the fee, according to a March filing.The Trump Administration has overhauled the H-1B visa application system in other ways. In December, the Administration announced that it was abandoning the long-standing lottery system used to grant the petitions in favor of a weighted system that would favor higher-skilled and better-paid workers. The Administration also launched an enforcement initiative to probe employers’ compliance with the H-1B program rules in September.
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