The US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, marking the second time a federal court has enjoined enforcement of the policy.
Applauding the court’s decision, Steve Bressler, senior legal adviser at the group Democracy Forward, stated:
The administration tried to financially punish companies with an arbitrary, unauthorized, and deeply harmful $100,000 fee imposed without Congress. This decision adds to those protecting workers and communities, and protects a system that was thrown into chaos overnight. It also reaffirms a fundamental principle of our democracy: no administration is above the law, and the president cannot rewrite immigration policy with the stroke of a pen.
US District Judge Haywood Gilliam granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in part, preventing US agencies from implementing Sections 1, 2, and 3(a) of a renewed presidential proclamation requiring employers filing an H-1B petition on behalf of noncitizens outside the US to pay $100,000
In his ruling, the court found that he could review the immigration policy as a potentially unauthorized exercise of delegated authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act. It further found the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the agencies failed to comply with procedural requirements. The court therefore granted the injunction until the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) completes proper notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act and conducts analyses on the proposed rule’s impact on small businesses under the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
The suit was brought by healthcare, educational, and religious organizations, along with groups representing those sectors and immigrant-rights interests. They highlighted the role of H-1B visa holders in US productivity growth, addressing shortages of healthcare professionals needed to serve an aging population, filling shortages of teachers and foreign-language instructors, and providing pastoral and missionary services.
The government argued that the H-1B program is susceptible to abuse, displacing qualified American workers and undermining the economy and national security.
President Trump initially imposed the $100,000 fee in a September 2025 proclamation. In June 2026, a federal court in Massachusetts blocked enforcement of that fee, and the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit left that injunction in place. In August, DHS proposed a rule creating a similar fee. Last month, President Trump extended the original proclamation for another year.