A federal judge on Monday struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, declaring the levy an unconstitutional tax that Congress never authorized.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston represents a major legal setback for the administration’s efforts to curb high-skilled immigration, though it sets up a direct legal conflict with another federal court that upheld the fee months ago.
In a 42-page opinion, Judge Sorokin sided with a coalition of 20 Democratic-led states, finding that the steep charge violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution’s separation of powers.
“Here, the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called,” Sorokin wrote. He noted that Congress had not delegated the power to impose such a tax to the executive branch.
The ruling cancels out a September proclamation by President Trump, who argued the fee was necessary to stop the “large-scale replacement of American workers” and protect national security. Prior to the change, H-1B fees typically ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 per application.
A Nationwide Injunction—Or Not?
The legal landscape surrounding the H-1B fee is now fractured. While Judge Sorokin ruled the fee illegal in Massachusetts, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., upheld the fee late last year in a separate lawsuit brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Because Judge Sorokin issued a nationwide injunction, the fee is currently blocked for all employers. However, the Chamber of Commerce has already appealed the Washington ruling, and the Circuit Court of Appeals could rule at any moment. The Trump administration has vowed to appeal Monday’s Boston ruling, setting the stage for a potential Supreme Court battle.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers pushed back against the ruling, asserting the administration’s authority.
“President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is exactly what he did,” Rogers said in a statement. “A federal judge in Washington already upheld a nearly identical order, and the administration is confident this order will be reversed on appeal.”
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A Program Shaped by Political Debate and Scandal
The H-1B visa has long been a lightning rod in American political discourse. For advocates, it represents an attractive mechanism to bring top foreign talent—particularly in science, technology, engineering, and medicine—into the U.S. economy, fueling innovation and filling critical skill gaps . Major tech companies and industries have consistently argued that access to global talent is essential for maintaining American competitiveness .
However, the program has also been plagued by persistent controversies and scandals. Processing backlogs, allegations of misuse by outsourcing firms, and concerns about wage suppression for American workers have fueled debates in Washington for years . Perhaps most damaging was a massive fraud scandal uncovered in the Indian state of Kerala last year, where authorities exposed a network that allegedly sold tens of thousands of fake degrees to individuals seeking H-1B visas.
Police raids recovered over 100,000 counterfeit certificates linked to more than two dozen universities, with investigators claiming the network may have supplied fraudulent documents to over one million people across India . The scandal, which involved fake seals, mark sheets, and even bribes paid to officials, raised serious questions about the integrity of the application process and prompted calls for stricter verification measures from U.S. immigration authorities.
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India Dominates H-1B Approvals
The significance of the H-1B program for India cannot be overstated. According to the latest USCIS data, India is by far the largest recipient of H-1B visas, accounting for approximately 70 to 71 percent of all approved petitions annually. For fiscal year 2025 alone, Indian nationals received 283,772 H-1B approvals, far outpacing any other nation.
China ranks a distant second, receiving roughly 46,000 to 49,000 approvals, which represents about 11 to 12 percent of the total. All other countries—including the Philippines, Canada, South Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Brazil, and Taiwan—each receive less than two percent of the annual allocation.
Of the 399,395 H-1B petitions approved in the most recent fiscal year, India and China together accounted for over 82 percent of all recipients, underscoring the program’s heavy concentration on Asian talent pipelines.
AI Talent War Defies the Fee
Interestingly, while the $100,000 fee caused a dramatic drop in overall H-1B applications—USCIS reported receiving just 211,600 submissions for the 2027 lottery, down from 343,981 the year prior—it did not deter the biggest names in Artificial Intelligence.
According to a Business Insider analysis of Department of Labor data, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia all increased their H-1B filings in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 compared to the previous year. Anthropic saw its certified applications jump from 10 to 59, while OpenAI rose from 20 to 63. Nvidia, the chip giant, filed 765 applications, up from 641.
Recruiters suggest that for firms racing to dominate AI, the $100,000 fee is merely “a rounding error against the cost of not landing the right researcher.” The data suggests that the fee successfully discouraged some traditional tech giants—Google saw a 64% decline in filings—but failed to cool the white-hot market for elite AI talent.
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A Bipartisan Legislative Fix
The ruling also comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill pursued their own remedy. In March, a bipartisan group of representatives—including Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA) and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY)—introduced legislation to exempt healthcare workers from the fee.
Hospitals in rural and underserved areas had warned lawmakers that the $100,000 fee would exacerbate severe staffing shortages, making it impossible to recruit foreign-born doctors and nurses.
“While the bipartisan legislation that I introduced earlier this year applied only to health care professionals, the ruling by Judge Sorokin is a victory for every American concerned about attracting the world’s smartest talent to our country,” Bishop said following the decision.
Impact on States and Public Services
The states that brought the lawsuit argued that the fee crippled their ability to hire teachers for primary schools, researchers for public universities, and doctors for rural hospitals.
“Today’s victory protects the integrity of the H-1B visa program as a tool to address severe labor shortages in vital industries like education, healthcare, and medical research,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
The ruling specifically cited the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (the individual mandate as a tax), finding that Trump’s fee did not function as a penalty but as a revenue-raising tax—a power reserved for Congress.
Iftikhar Ali is a veteran Pakistani journalist, former president of UN Correspondents Association, and a recipient of the Pride of Performance civil award
