Federal Judge Voids Trump's $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee as Unlawful Tax

Summary

A federal judge in Boston just threw out one of the more audacious immigration fees in recent memory. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, in a 42-page ruling issued Monday, struck down the Trump administration's $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visa applications, finding it an unauthorized tax that violated both administrative law and the Constitution. The fee, announced last September, would have multiplied costs overnight for any American company seeking to hire a highly skilled foreign worker through the program. Judge Sorokin's core conclusion was blunt: the president cannot unilaterally impose new financial levies of that scale without congressional approval. The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of 20 Democratic state attorneys general, and their argument carried the day. The H-1B program is the primary pipeline through which U.S. Tech companies, hospitals, and research institutions hire engineers, doctors, and specialists from abroad, and the proposed fee had been widely expected to function more as a barrier than a revenue measure. The administration framed the charge as a way to fund immigration enforcement and push employers toward hiring American workers. For now, the court has decided that goal, whatever its merit, required an act of Congress to carry out.