A second U.S. federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s unprecedented $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, adding another legal obstacle to an administration policy that has sharply increased the cost of hiring foreign professionals.
U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, California, ruled that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department failed to follow required rule-making procedures before implementing the fee. Gilliam granted a request from a coalition of unions, employers and nonprofit organizations seeking to prevent the agencies from enforcing the charge while their lawsuit proceeds.
The decision is the second major court setback for the fee. In June, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the policy in a separate lawsuit brought by 20 states. The First Circuit Court of Appeals in July declined to suspend that ruling while the case proceeds, leaving the fee tied up in litigation.
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The latest ruling adds another layer to a legal dispute that has focused not only on the size of the charge but on how the administration sought to impose it.
The Trump administration originally introduced the $100,000 payment requirement in September 2025, arguing that the H-1B system had been abused by employers that used foreign workers as a source of lower-cost labor. Trump invoked presidential authority under federal immigration law to restrict the entry of foreign nationals whose admission he said could be detrimental to U.S. interests.
The fee represented an extraordinary increase from the roughly $2,000 to $5,000 in fees that employers had typically faced, depending on the circumstances of an H-1B application.
Trump extended the policy in September for another year, through September 21, 2027. However, the extension came while the original policy was already blocked by court orders, meaning the government is not currently collecting the $100,000 payment.
Legal Battle Exposes Broader Fight Over Executive Power
Gilliam’s ruling differs in an important respect from the Massachusetts litigation. The California case centers on whether federal agencies followed the Administrative Procedure Act’s rule-making requirements when they implemented the presidential proclamation.
The Massachusetts case has also challenged the government’s authority to impose the payment, with the district court concluding that the administration’s actions violated federal law and the Constitution. The First Circuit subsequently refused to put that ruling on hold.
That decision will likely come into play as the administration attempts to preserve a substantially higher cost for H-1B hiring through a different regulatory route.
The Department of Homeland Security began the process in August of adopting a permanent fee of about $103,000. A finalized rule could face its own lawsuit, but such litigation would involve different questions from the current cases concerning Trump’s unilateral authority to impose the $100,000 payment.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has separately challenged the fee. The country’s largest business lobbying organization is appealing a judge’s decision rejecting its argument that Trump lacked the authority to impose the charge.
Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs in the California case, welcomed Gilliam’s decision.
“Today’s decision … protects a system that was thrown into chaos overnight,” said Steve Bressler, a lawyer with the group.
The accumulation of cases means the future of the H-1B fee is now being shaped by several separate legal challenges, even as the administration pursues a longer-term regulatory framework that could preserve a similarly high cost.
Technology Industry Faces Uncertainty Over Foreign Talent
The dispute has significant implications for companies that depend on the H-1B program to recruit specialized workers. The program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign professionals in specialty occupations and is particularly important to the technology industry.
The annual H-1B allocation includes 65,000 visas, with another 20,000 reserved for workers holding advanced U.S. degrees. Visas are generally approved for periods of three to six years.
A $100,000 charge changes the economics of those hires dramatically. For employers, the issue is not simply the additional cost of a visa but whether the expense changes decisions about where to locate work, whether to sponsor international employees, and whether to recruit talent from outside the United States at all.
That uncertainty has become an important part of the business impact of the policy. Companies can potentially respond by hiring workers who are already in the United States, expanding operations abroad or relying more heavily on other forms of international staffing. Reuters has reported that major H-1B users such as Alphabet have been expanding operations in India as companies adjust to changes in the U.S. immigration environment.
The administration has simultaneously pursued other changes to the program. It has ordered enhanced vetting of H-1B applicants and proposed a selection system that would give greater weight to higher-skilled and higher-paid workers.
The move has created a broader policy shift: rather than simply reducing the number of foreign workers, the administration is attempting to alter the economic incentives around which foreign workers U.S. companies can hire and at what cost.
For employers, however, the continuing court battles leave the rules unsettled. The administration has extended the $100,000 policy to 2027, while courts have now blocked its implementation in two separate cases. The proposed permanent fee of roughly $103,000 could also face litigation once finalized.
The immediate effect is not the establishment of a new $100,000 baseline for H-1B hiring, but another delay in determining whether the administration can legally impose such a substantial charge.