US President Donald Trump’s move to impose an $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers was struck down by a federal court today. US District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston said the fee was an unlawful tax that the Congress had never authorised, reported news agency Reuters.
The ruling came on a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging the fee Trump announced in September.
The H-1B programme offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years. Employers seeking a visa for a foreign worker used to pay a fee of around $2,000 to $5,000.
The increase in fees has discouraged H-1B visa requests, court filings by the administration indicated. As of February 15, US Citizenship and Immigration Services had received just 85 payments of the increased fee of $100,000, the administration said in March.
Read: H-1B Visa Applications Drop 38%. Trump Administration Says Days Of Abuse Over
Last month, data released by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) showed that properly submitted H-1B registrations fell by 38.5 per cent compared to last year, from 343,981 in fiscal year 2026 to 211,600 for fiscal year 2027.
The administration had argued that the fee constituted a monetary penalty the US President had lawful authority to impose under federal immigration law to restrict the entry of foreign nationals.
But the court disagreed.
“The President has no authority to levy a tax unless such a power is delegated by Congress through statute… the Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress. (hence) the Policy implementing the Proclamation is declared unlawful and is vacated in its entirety,” the court ruled.
What Trump’s Proclamation Said
The proclamation to impose the higher visa fee had noted that the H-1B programme “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor,” which has subsequently “undermined both our economic and national security”.
“Some employers, using practices now widely adopted by entire sectors, have abused the H-1B statute and its regulations to artificially suppress wages, resulting in a disadvantageous labor market for American citizens, while at the same time making it more difficult to attract and retain the highest skilled subset of temporary workers, with the largest impact seen in critical science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields,” it added.
The India Link
The visa fee hike and changes in immigration rules imposed by the Donald Trump administration had raised concern in India, as it impacted a huge number of Indians. With employers shying off from hiring foreigners amid thousands of tech job cuts attributed to AI, it had created a massive job vacuum.
Read: “Some Bumps” Likely: Marco Rubio As S Jaishankar Flags Visa Concerns
The fallout was a huge drop in visa applications from India and Indian workers in the US, after losing jobs and failing to find one within the mandatory 60 days, heading home.
In May, foreign minister S Jaishankar had flagged the matter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rubio had acknowledged that there could be “some bumps” and “friction points” in the period of transition as the US was trying to improve the immigration system. But ultimately an “efficient” framework will be helpful to every stakeholder, he had said.
Underscoring that the system is not targeted at India, Rubio had said the US has been facing a “migration crisis”.
“This is not because of India, but broadly, we have had over 20 million people illegally enter the United States over the last few years, and we have had to address that challenge,” he had said.
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