President Donald Trump’s $100,000 visa fee for H-1B applicants has hit a new legal roadblock.
A federal judge at a US District Court in Massachusetts ruled Monday that the fee violates the Constitution’s Administrative Procedure Act.
Judge Leo Sorokin found that the fee is “unlawful,” according to his ruling. Sorokin said the fee constitutes a tax and requires congressional approval to implement.
Trump’s implementation of the $100,000 fee for new petitions using an executive order last year “exceeds the scope of the President’s discretionary authority” under US immigration law, Sorokin wrote.
The fee has faced legal challenges since Trump signed the executive order in September.
The President has argued that companies have used the visa to replace US workers. Employees at tech companies are among the most common applicants for the visas.
While the battle over whether the fee is constitutional will likely continue, the order has already had an effect. The number of H-1B visa applications from Big Tech companies such as Google and Microsoft fell at the end of last year after Trump signed the executive order. Major AI companies, meanwhile, such as OpenAI and Nvidia, have filed more applications, according to federal data.
The fee was previously as much as $5,000 per visa before Trump made the change last year.
The Trump administration has also changed other parts of the immigration process. High-paid applicants now get multiple lottery entries, giving them a better chance of being selected versus those hoping to land lower-paid positions.
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