An Obama-appointed judge in Boston ruled the Trump administration's $100,000 H-1B visa fee is an unconstitutional tax, handing 20 Democratic state attorneys general a courtroom win and forcing the fight to the appeals courts.
A federal judge in Boston threw out President Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications on Monday, ruling that the charge functions as a tax and that the president cannot impose taxes without an act of Congress. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, appointed by President Obama, vacated the fee nationwide, blocking a policy the administration said was designed to protect American workers from displacement by foreign high-skilled labor.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in December by a coalition of 20 Democratic state attorneys general, who argued the executive branch had exceeded its authority. Sorokin agreed. "The Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress," he wrote. Although immigration law gives the president broad powers to restrict who may enter the country, the judge found that none of those powers, as written, "include the power to tax."
Trump announced the fee last September as part of a broader push to slow the flow of foreign workers into high-paying technology and engineering jobs. Before the proclamation, employers typically paid between $2,000 and $5,000 in fees to sponsor an H-1B worker, depending on the size of the company and the type of application, according to federal data. The $100,000 figure was designed to make it significantly more expensive for employers to pass over the domestic labor market entirely.
The administration made clear it intends to fight the ruling. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said "President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America's best interests," and the Justice Department indicated it will appeal. Trump, speaking publicly after the ruling, did not conceal his frustration with the federal bench. "These federal judges are really giving us a hard time. It is really crazy what's going on with the court system," he said, according to The Hill.
The administration's appeal will center on the president's broad statutory authority under immigration law to restrict the entry of foreign nationals. Whether that authority extends to imposing fees of this magnitude without explicit congressional authorization is precisely the question Sorokin answered in the negative. The First Circuit will be expected to weigh in, and its ruling could set a precedent reaching well beyond H-1B policy and into the broader scope of executive power over immigration fees and conditions.
Congress as the Next Battleground
Even if the administration loses on appeal, Republicans in Congress have an alternative path. Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona introduced the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026 in April, the most aggressive H-1B reform bill in years. The legislation would pause all new H-1B petitions for three years, slash the annual visa cap from 65,000 to 25,000, require a $200,000 minimum salary for sponsored workers, and ban third-party staffing companies from the program. By grounding those restrictions in statute rather than executive proclamation, the bill would remove the constitutional objection that sank Monday's fee. Crane responded to the ruling with a direct call to action. "Although an activist judge blocked President Trump's reforms to the H-1B program, Congress can fix it without judicial obstruction," he said. As of this week, the bill has not received a vote in either chamber.
The case is also one of at least two active legal challenges to the fee. A separate lawsuit filed in San Francisco by religious groups and labor organizations is moving through the courts, which could eventually produce divided rulings across multiple federal circuits and raise the likelihood the Supreme Court would ultimately take up the question.
The ruling fits a pattern that has defined immigration litigation since Trump returned to office: the administration acts through executive authority, Democratic state attorneys general file suit within weeks, and a judge appointed by a Democratic president issues a nationwide injunction. Republicans argue the strategy amounts to a coordinated effort to use the courts as a check on the executive branch in ways the Constitution never envisioned. Whether Sorokin's reasoning survives at the First Circuit is the immediate question. In the meantime, employers who rely on H-1B visas face one less financial barrier, and American workers competing for those same jobs are back to waiting on Congress to deliver what the courts just took away.
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