Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee Returns After Judge Temporarily Pauses Court Ruling

In a legal whiplash that immigration lawyers are calling “visa cost chaos,” Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee is back in effect just four days after a federal judge struck it down.

On June 8, 2026, US District Judge Leo T. Sorokin in Boston issued a sweeping 42-page ruling vacating the administration’s $100,000 supplemental fee on new H-1B visa petitions, calling it an unconstitutional tax imposed without Congressional authority. By June 12, the same judge had issued a temporary stay of his own order pausing the ruling to give the First Circuit Court of Appeals time to consider the government’s appeal. The result: employers filing new H-1B petitions for workers outside the United States must once again pay the six-figure fee while litigation continues.

“Visa cost whiplash,” as Business Standard put it. The fee was killed on Monday. It was resurrected on Friday.

How the $100,000 Fee Came to Exist

President Trump signed a Presidential Proclamation titled “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers” on September 19, 2025, effective at 12:01 a.m. the following morning giving businesses less than 24 hours to prepare. The proclamation imposed a flat $100,000 supplemental fee, payable via pay.gov before an employer can even file an H-1B petition with USCIS, but only for new petitions covering workers currently outside the United States. Extensions for existing H-1B holders inside America were exempted.

The fee represented a staggering increase from the prior H-1B cost structure of roughly $1,700 to $4,500 in total government fees. Trump framed it as protecting American workers from displacement by cheaper foreign labour and generating revenue from a program historically dominated by large technology companies.

The US Chamber of Commerce immediately filed suit, with Executive VP Neil Bradley stating: “The new $100,000 visa fee will make it cost-prohibitive for US employers, especially start-ups and small and midsize businesses, to utilise the H-1B program.” A DC District Court upheld the fee on December 23, 2025 — but the Chamber appealed to the DC Circuit, where oral arguments were heard in March 2026 with a ruling still pending.

Why the Boston Judge Struck It Down

The Massachusetts ruling was more legally aggressive. Judge Sorokin, an Obama appointee, found that the $100,000 charge functions as a tax not a regulatory fee and under the US Constitution, only Congress can levy taxes. The administration argued the fee was authorised under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to restrict entry of non-citizens in the national interest. Sorokin rejected this: 212(f) grants entry restriction powers, not revenue-raising powers.

The ruling also found violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, as the proclamation bypassed the required notice-and-comment rulemaking process. The case California et al. v. Mullin et al., No. 26-1699 was brought by a coalition of 20 Democratic state attorneys general led by California AG Rob Bonta and Massachusetts AG Andrea Joy Campbell.

Now the Trump administration has filed its notice of appeal. The government has until June 18, 2026 to formally request a stay from the First Circuit. If granted, the fee remains in effect while the full appeal is heard. If denied, it falls again.

India in the Crosshairs Again

No country is more exposed to this legal battle than India. Indian nationals account for approximately 71% of all approved H-1B petitions, making the $100,000 fee effectively a tax on Indian technology talent flowing into the United States. India’s IT giants TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies watched their stocks dip when the fee was first announced and spike when it was struck down on June 8. The June 12 reinstatement reversed those gains.

NASSCOM, India’s technology industry body, initially warned the fee would cost Indian IT firms $200 to $250 million per year in additional compliance costs before softening its stance to describe the actual impact as “marginal,” noting that India’s top IT companies have already reduced H-1B dependency visa approvals for leading Indian firms fell from 14,792 in 2015 to 10,162 in 2024 while spending over $1 billion on local US hiring and upskilling.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the measure was “likely to have humanitarian consequences” for disrupted families. The Indian Embassy in Washington issued an emergency helpline. The fee has become another pressure point in already strained India-US trade deal negotiations, which were also complicated by reciprocal tariff disputes and the Strait of Hormuz Crisis that disrupted Middle East travel routes critical to Indian professionals commuting between the two countries.

Republicans at War With Themselves

The H-1B fight has exposed a fault line running through the Republican Party that even Trump cannot easily bridge. On one side stands Elon Musk who publicly backed skilled immigration and warned that restrictionist Republicans would be the “downfall” of the GOP. On the other stands the MAGA immigration-restriction wing: Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) introduced the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026 in April, calling for a three-year suspension of all H-1B visas, co-sponsored by seven House Republicans.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers urged Trump to work with Congress rather than use executive proclamations. Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin introduced a middle-ground overhaul bill. Trump himself said he had “always” supported bringing competent people into the country while simultaneously signing the proclamation that priced many employers out of doing exactly that.

What Happens Next

The litigation now runs on three simultaneous tracks. The First Circuit will determine whether the stay holds and eventually rule on the merits. The DC Circuit, which heard arguments in March 2026, is expected to rule at any time and if it upholds the fee, a direct circuit split with Massachusetts will almost certainly accelerate a Supreme Court petition.

A third case, Global Nurse Force et al. v. Trump, is pending in the Northern District of California, potentially adding a Ninth Circuit ruling to the split.

For the 85,000 H-1B visa slots allocated annually with approximately 336,000 registrations competing for them in FY2026, of which 119,000 were selected in the lottery the legal uncertainty is not abstract. It is a $100,000 question that US companies and skilled foreign workers must answer each time they file, with no guarantee the answer will be the same next week as it is today.

The post-US-Iran Agreement economic recovery that Washington is banking on requires exactly the technology workforce this fee was designed to restrict. That contradiction sits at the heart of America’s immigration debate and it is heading to the Supreme Court.