OAN Staff Sophia Flores
12:09 PM – Tuesday, July 9, 2026
A federal judge has struck down a Trump administration policy that imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications.
In a Monday ruling, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that the sweeping fee exceeded executive authority and bypassed the constitutional separation of powers. Although President Donald Trump issued the charge though a presidential proclamation, Sorokin declared it to be an “unlawful tax” that the executive branch did not have the authority to impose.
Siding with a coalition of 20 Democrat-led states, the judge, who was appointed under former President Barack Obama, ruled that the Trump administration exceeded its authority, and that the decision can only be made by Congress.
“The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” Sorokin wrote in his 42-page decision. “Here, the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called.”
The administration had described the massive fee — which raised the cost of a petition from a few thousand dollars to six figures — as an incentive to discourage U.S. companies from outsourcing its work to foreigners while encouraging them to hire American workers instead.
Due to the prohibitive cost, court filings show the administration had collected only 85 payments as of February.
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