US judge strikes down Trump’s $100,000 H1-B visa fee
Key takeaways
- In a ruling on Monday, a federal judge said the fee was a tax that Trump didn’t have authority to impose.
- The H-1B programme offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years.
- The increase in fees has discouraged H-1B visa requests, according to court filings.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
In a ruling on Monday, a federal judge said the fee was a tax that Trump didn’t have authority to impose.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Donald Trump announced the new H1-B visa fee in September, dramatically raising the cost of obtaining the visas [File: Evan Vucci/Reuters]By Reuters Published On 8 Jun 20268 Jun 2026A United States federal judge has struck down the $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 issued the ruling in Boston on Monday in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging the fee Trump announced in September, which dramatically raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas.