Trump’s US$100,000 H-1B visa fee is an unlawful tax, judge rules
The administration had argued that Trump had authority to impose the visa fee for highly skilled foreign workers
A federal judge on Monday struck down a US$100,000 fee that US President Donald Trump imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, concluding that it constituted an unlawful tax that Congress never authorised.
US District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the ruling 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 authorised 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 authorisation from Congress to issue and that the US State Department and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) 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 former president Barack Obama.
The judge cited the US Supreme Court’s February ruling striking down Trump’s sweeping tariffs he pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies. Under the logic of the justices’ decision in that case, Trump similarly had no authority under immigration law to levy a tax, Sorokin said.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers in a statement said the Trump administration is confident Sorokin’s order will be reversed on appeal.