U.S. Court Blocks $100,000 Hike in Specialty Occupation Visa Fees

The U.S. court has blocked the Trump Administration’s move to increase professional visa fees. The court determined that raising the application fee for the H-1B professional employment visa to $100,000 constitutes a tax imposed without congressional approval.

AP Yonhap News

According to foreign media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on June 8 (local time), Judge Leo Sorokin of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts ruled that the Trump Administration’s increase in H-1B visa fees was illegal, in a lawsuit filed by attorneys general from 20 Democratic states including California.

Judge Sorokin stated regarding the $100,000 fee, “Regardless of its name, its nature and application reveal that it is a tax.” This implies that the administration cannot impose such a fee unilaterally without congressional approval.

The H-1B visa is a work visa for professionals in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields. The annual issuance cap through a lottery system is 85,000. The basic period of stay is three years, which can be extended, and holders are also eligible to apply for permanent residency.

U.S. President Donald Trump drastically raised the H-1B visa application fee from about $1,000 to $100,000 in September last year, a nearly 100-fold increase. Following this change, companies that had been using the H-1B visa to hire foreign professionals voiced strong opposition.

The Trump Administration has argued that companies use the H-1B visa to bring in relatively inexpensive foreign workers, thereby threatening American jobs.

In contrast, companies insist that the H-1B visa is necessary to fill workforce shortages in certain specialized fields within the United States. Especially among technology companies, there are concerns that excessive restrictions on this visa could undermine their competitiveness by making it harder to secure highly skilled talent.

In fact, data submitted to the court during the lawsuit showed that H-1B visa applications dropped sharply after the fee increase. As of February 15, according to the records, only 85 applications had been received by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) with the $100,000 fee in effect.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.