Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee Is Unlawful, US Judge Rules

A federal judge on Monday struck down a $100,000 fee U.S. President Donald Trump imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled ‌foreign workers, concluding that it constituted an unlawful tax Congress never authorized.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the ruling, opens new tab in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging a fee Trump announced in September that dramatically raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas, which tech companies in particular rely heavily on to bring on foreign workers.

The ​administration argued the fee constituted a lawful monetary penalty that the president was authorized to impose under federal immigration law, which gives ​him the power to restrict the entry of certain foreign nationals when he deems it “detrimental to the interests of the ⁠United States.”

But Sorokin concluded that the fee was not a penalty but a tax that the Republican president lacked any authorization from Congress to ​issue and that the U.S. State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services could not implement.

“Here, the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that ​it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called,” wrote Sorokin, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama.

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