A federal judge on Monday struck down a $100,000 fee that US President Donald Trump imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, concluding that it was an illegal tax that Congress never authorized.
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the ruling in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging a fee that Trump announced in September that dramatically increased the cost of obtaining H-1B visas.
The H-1B program provides 65,000 visas each year, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, authorized for three to six years.
Employers seeking visas for foreign workers before Trump’s announcement typically paid about US$2,000 to US$5,000 in fees depending on various factors.
The fee increase has discouraged H-1B visa applications, according to court filings. As of February 15, US Citizenship and Immigration Services had received only 85 payments of US$100,000 in fees, the administration said in a March filing.
Administrators argued that the fee constituted a monetary penalty that the president had legal authority to impose under federal immigration law to restrict certain foreign nationals from entering.
