Legislative lowdown: Judge blocks Trump’s H-1B visa fee on grounds it’s an unlawful tax

A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee is illegal, blocking the policy in its entirety.

In a ruling issued on June 8, Leo Sorokin, a federal judge in Massachusetts, sided with 20 Democratic state attorneys general who sued the administration over the fee. Last September, the administration said in a proclamation that it would impose a $100,000 fee on any new H-1B visa petitions, creating a financial hurdle for employers who rely on the H-1B program to recruit and hire talent.

Sorokin ruled that the $100,000 fee is a tax that did not receive approval from Congress, and is thus illegal.

The Trump administration argues the president had the authority to restrict immigration by implementing this fee, and plans to appeal the decision.

“The H-1B program has been abused for decades, and President Trump finally took action to fix it. A federal judge in Washington already upheld a nearly identical order, and the Administration is confident this order will be reversed on appeal,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, told CNBC.

Relief on the horizon? Sorokin’s decision could offer some relief to employers that pulled back on hiring H-1B workers because of the $100,000 fee. Just 85 employers had paid it as of mid-February, according to a court filing from the Trump administration, suggesting enrollment in the H-1B lottery was down.

The H-1B program is designed for highly skilled workers in “specialty occupations” like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Prior to the imposition of the Trump administration’s fee, employers typically paid between $2,000 and $5,000 to sponsor foreign-born workers on H-1B visas, in addition to a $780 fee, HR Brew previously reported.

Plaintiffs in this lawsuit had argued schools, universities, and hospitals that rely heavily on H-1B workers would be particularly hard-hit by the policy. The tech sector is also historically reliant on H-1B talent; nearly 5,000 H-1B visas were approved for Amazon workers in fiscal year 2025, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The state attorneys generals’ case isn’t the only challenge to the H-1B visa fee making its way through the courts. The US Chamber of Commerce also sued the Department of Homeland Security over the policy, which was upheld by a federal judge in DC last December. The Chamber is appealing that decision.

Because this recent decision conflicts with the Chamber’s case, “it is likely to end up in front of an appeal court soon. So the celebrating might be short lived,” Diane Hernandez, a partner in the Denver office of law firm Hall Estill, told HR Brew via email.

“Unfortunately, since the fee requirement was implemented, it has affected companies that have had to either pay the exorbitant fee, or forgo hiring a top candidate in lieu of a less qualified one who doesn’t need sponsorship,” she added.