Boston judge strikes down Trump's $100K H-1B visa fee

On Monday, a federal judge in Boston dismantled one of the Trump administration's signature immigration policies, striking down a $100,000 fee imposed on new H-1B visa petitions. The ruling contradicts an earlier court decision that had allowed the fee to stand, and it exposes a deepening legal fracture over how far executive power extends in reshaping immigration law.

U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin sided with twenty states challenging the fee, concluding that the administration had overstepped its constitutional bounds. The core legal problem, as Sorokin saw it, was simple: the fee functions as a tax, and taxes require Congressional approval. "The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress," he wrote. The Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies craft and enforce regulations, had been violated. The administration's stated rationale—that the fee would discourage employers from hiring foreign workers and protect American jobs—did not, in the judge's view, justify the legal mechanism used to implement it.

H-1B visas exist to fill specialized positions that employers claim they cannot staff with American workers. The program has become synonymous with the technology sector, which accounts for the vast majority of approvals. Nearly three-quarters of H-1B workers come from India. Before the fee increase, a typical H-1B petition already cost several thousand dollars. The new $100,000 surcharge triggered immediate chaos: employers, students, and workers both domestically and internationally scrambled to understand the implications. Lawsuits proliferated across three federal circuits—Boston, Washington D.C., and San Francisco—each potentially producing different outcomes.

The twenty states that challenged the fee argued that it would cripple their ability to recruit teachers, doctors, and university staff. Public colleges and universities rely on the H-1B program to fill faculty positions and support academic research. Schools and hospitals in rural and underserved areas, they contended, would be hit hardest. The states framed the issue not as a labor market abstraction but as a direct threat to their residents' access to education and healthcare. "The Proclamation makes various overtures to domestic economic policy goals to justify the unprecedented $100,000 fee," the states wrote in their complaint, "but the Proclamation gives no indication that the President gave any consideration to how the fee would affect Plaintiff States and their ability to provide their residents access to education, healthcare, and other basic human needs."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce mounted its own legal challenge in federal court in Washington, appealing a denial of summary judgment. That appeal kept the higher fee in effect, at least temporarily. Sorokin's ruling, also a summary judgment, points in the opposite direction. The fee is scheduled to expire in September 2026, but the conflicting court decisions across multiple circuits have created a legal standoff that will likely reach the appellate level and possibly beyond.

The Department of Homeland Security responded to Sorokin's decision with sharp language, calling it "blatant judicial activism" that dismantles the administration's immigration reform agenda. The agency restated its position that the visa system should prioritize American citizens and workers, and that the fee was designed to prevent foreign workers from displacing American labor while reducing strain on social services and preserving national identity. The administration's framing of the issue—as a matter of protecting American jobs and cultural cohesion—clashed fundamentally with the states' argument that the fee would harm their ability to deliver basic services.

What happens next remains uncertain. The conflicting rulings across three federal circuits create the possibility that different regions of the country could operate under different rules. Appeals are inevitable, and the Supreme Court may eventually be asked to resolve the constitutional question at the heart of the dispute: whether the President can impose fees on visa categories without explicit Congressional authorization. Until then, employers and workers exist in a state of legal limbo, unsure which rule will ultimately govern.