A second federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, deepening the legal uncertainty surrounding one of the administration’s most aggressive efforts to reshape high-skilled immigration. U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland ruled that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department failed to follow required rulemaking procedures before implementing the charge, leaving employers without a clear path to the much higher fee while litigation continues.
The ruling is the latest setback for the Trump H-1B fee policy, which dramatically increased the cost of sponsoring certain new foreign workers. A separate federal judge in Boston blocked the fee in June, and a federal appeals court declined to pause that earlier decision in July.
Trump H-1B Fee Faces a Second Federal Injunction
Gilliam granted a request from a coalition of unions, employers and nonprofit groups that sued over the fee last year. The judge concluded that the government had not used the notice-and-comment procedures generally required when agencies create rules with major economic effects.
The administration has argued that the president has broad authority under immigration law to restrict the entry of foreign nationals when their admission would be detrimental to U.S. interests. Trump used that authority to condition entry for certain H-1B workers on a $100,000 payment by sponsoring employers, saying the program had been abused and had displaced American workers.
The challengers dispute that interpretation. They argue that a payment imposed on employers operates more like a fee or tax than an entry restriction and therefore cannot be created unilaterally without the statutory and administrative procedures Congress requires.
What Employers Normally Pay for H-1B Petitions
The H-1B program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations, including technology, engineering, medicine and other fields requiring specialized education. The program generally provides 65,000 visas annually, plus another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions.
Before the Trump policy, employers typically paid a combination of filing, anti-fraud and workforce-training fees that were far below $100,000. An official USCIS overview lists standard H-1B filing charges including a base filing fee, an anti-fraud fee and additional employer-dependent charges, while optional premium processing can add another cost.
The $100,000 payment therefore changed the economics of the program rather than merely adjusting an existing filing fee. For lower-paid specialty occupations or smaller employers, the new charge could approach or exceed a worker’s annual compensation, making many sponsorships financially impractical.
Technology, Health Care and Universities Are Watching Closely
Technology companies are among the largest users of H-1B visas, but the program also matters to hospitals, universities, engineering firms and research institutions. Employers argue that it helps fill positions when they cannot find enough workers with particular technical skills, while critics say some companies use the program to reduce labor costs or replace U.S. employees.
USCIS data show how concentrated the program is in professional occupations. In fiscal 2024, computer-related jobs accounted for more than half of approved initial-employment H-1B petitions, while engineering, medicine, education and scientific occupations also represented substantial shares.
The legal uncertainty makes workforce planning difficult because employers often begin recruiting and immigration preparation months before a worker is expected to start. A fee that can appear, disappear or change through litigation affects hiring budgets, relocation decisions and whether firms choose to sponsor foreign professionals at all.
A Separate Permanent Fee Proposal Is Still Moving
The administration’s litigation problem does not end the broader effort to raise H-1B costs. The Department of Homeland Security moved in August toward a separate permanent fee of about $103,000, a proposal that would rely on formal agency rulemaking rather than the presidential mechanism at issue in the current cases.
That distinction is legally important. The lawsuits blocking Trump’s existing $100,000 charge focus heavily on presidential authority and administrative procedure, while a final DHS regulation could raise different questions about the scope of agency power, statutory authorization and whether the amount is reasonable.
The permanent proposal is likely to face litigation of its own if finalized. Business groups, unions and immigration advocates can challenge the rule under the Administrative Procedure Act, while supporters of the fee are likely to argue that the government has authority to structure the program in ways that protect U.S. workers and discourage overreliance on temporary foreign labor.
The Administration Has Also Tightened H-1B Screening
The fee is only one part of a broader policy shift. The administration has also increased vetting of H-1B applicants and proposed a selection system that would favor higher-skilled and higher-paid workers, seeking to move the program away from a pure lottery model.
Supporters say those changes could better align the visa with genuinely specialized labor needs and reduce incentives to use foreign workers primarily because they cost less. Opponents warn that additional restrictions can make it harder for smaller companies, hospitals and research institutions to compete with large corporations for global talent.
The debate reflects a broader disagreement over what the H-1B program is supposed to accomplish. One side emphasizes access to scarce expertise and the role immigrants play in innovation, while the other focuses on wage competition, outsourcing and whether temporary visas weaken bargaining power for U.S. workers.
The Courts Are Testing Presidential Power as Well as Immigration Policy
The current cases matter beyond H-1B visas because they ask how far a president can go in using entry restrictions to impose financial conditions that Congress did not specifically establish. The administration’s position could give presidents significant flexibility to use immigration authority as an economic policy tool.
The challengers argue that such flexibility would let the executive branch bypass Congress and ordinary agency procedures whenever a policy can be connected to the entry of foreign nationals. The courts so far have been skeptical of the $100,000 fee, but the litigation is not finished and appellate review could eventually produce a different outcome.
The administration also has the option of pursuing its objectives through legislation or a properly completed regulatory process. Those paths would take longer but could place the policy on stronger procedural footing than the mechanism currently blocked by two federal judges.
Employers Still Face Uncertainty Before the Next Visa Cycle
The immediate effect of Gilliam’s order is to keep the fee from being implemented through the challenged presidential policy while the lawsuit proceeds. Employers preparing for future H-1B hiring will still have to monitor the separate Boston case, the permanent DHS proposal and any appeals filed by the Justice Department.
The administration recently extended the challenged fee for another year, showing that the White House intends to keep defending the policy despite the earlier injunction. That makes further appellate litigation likely and leaves businesses without a final answer about what a new H-1B sponsorship may cost over the next several cycles.
For now, the second injunction strengthens the challengers’ position and keeps the $100,000 fee from becoming the normal price of a new H-1B visa. The larger fight over high-skilled immigration, however, is moving on multiple tracks and is likely to remain unsettled well beyond this latest ruling.
