President Donald Trump’s plans for H-1B visas are running into legal roadblocks.
A federal appeals court on Friday refused to revive Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B work visas, dealing another setback to the administration’s effort to dramatically raise the cost of hiring highly skilled foreign workers.
The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause a lower court ruling that blocked the fee while the administration appeals. A three-judge panel said the government failed to show it was likely to succeed in arguing that the president had the authority to impose the charge.
The decision leaves in place a June ruling by US District Judge Leo Sorokin, who said the fee amounted to a tax, which falls under Congress’s authority to authorize, rather than the president’s.
“Here, the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called,” Sorokin wrote.
Trump announced the fee in September 2025 as part of a broader immigration crackdown, stating at the time the H-1B program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
Brian Hunt, an immigration policy compliance lawyer with Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP, told Business Insider that it’s unclear how many people this court decision will affect, because most US employers hire H-1B workers who are already in the US.
“In light of the 100k fee, there are some workers who were about to lose their job offer but can now get a visa after all,” Hunt said.
The H-1B program issues around 65,000 visas each year, plus another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees, and is widely used by technology companies to recruit overseas talent. Before Trump’s policy, employers generally paid between about $2,000 and $5,000 in visa-related fees.
Court filings show the steep increase has sharply reduced demand. By mid-February, US Citizenship and Immigration Services had received few payments of the new fee.
The lawsuit challenging the fee was brought by 20 Democratic state attorneys general.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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