A Boston federal judge has overturned the Trump administration’s steep $100,000 charge for new H-1B visas on Monday, going against a previous federal court decision that had supported the fee increase. The administration had implemented this significantly higher cost as a measure to stop foreign workers from displacing American employees.
U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin ruled in favor of 20 states that challenged the visa policy, determining that the executive branch overstepped its legal boundaries and broke the Administrative Procedure Act, which controls how federal agencies create and implement rules.
“The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” Sorokin wrote.
The H-1B visa program targets highly skilled positions that prove challenging to fill with American workers. Technology companies with substantial resources represent the largest users, receiving almost three-quarters of all approvals for workers primarily from India. The challenging states contended that utilizing the H-1B system to address shortages of essential doctors and teachers had become increasingly problematic even before the fee increase took effect.
Educational institutions and state governments had expressed concerns that recruiting qualified professionals for teaching and medical positions was becoming increasingly difficult due to the financial barrier created by the higher visa costs.
