The Trump administration has suffered another legal setback after a federal appeals court refused to reinstate its proposed $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions, dealing a blow to one of its efforts to reshape the high-skilled immigration system.
The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined the administration’s request to pause a lower court ruling issued on June 8. That ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic-led states and found that the proposed fee amounted to an unlawful tax that Congress had never authorised.
US District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that the administration had exceeded its legal authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
“The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” as Judge Sorokin wrote.
The Trump administration introduced the proposed fee increase as part of its broader effort to discourage employers from hiring foreign workers instead of Americans. Before the proposed change, employers sponsoring H-1B workers typically paid between $2,000 and $5,000 in government filing fees, depending on the type of petition and other factors.
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Defending the policy, President Donald Trump argued that the H-1B visa programme “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labour.”
The proposed $100,000 fee was aimed at new H-1B petitions but would not have applied to foreign nationals already in the United States on student visas, a group that receives a significant share of new H-1B visas each year, according to Reuters.
Announced in September 2025, the policy sharply reduced demand for new H-1B petitions, Bloomberg reported. Court filings also showed that by mid-February, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services had received only a small number of payments under the proposed fee structure.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell praised the appeals court’s decision, saying it protects employers that depend on highly skilled international workers to address workforce shortages.
“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,” Campbell stated.
She added that the ruling would help Massachusetts continue filling critical positions while allowing colleges and universities across the state to recruit leading faculty members and researchers.