Trump Admin Appeals Ruling That Blocked $100,000 Fee for H-1B Visas

The Trump administration is appealing a ruling that blocked the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, and is asking the judge who handed down the ruling to stay it as the appeal is considered.

Government lawyers on June 11 filed notice that they’re appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit the June 8 ruling from U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, who concluded that the fee amounted to a tax that was imposed without delegation from Congress, as required.

The Department of Justice on Friday then asked Sorokin to issue a stay pending the outcome of the appeal.

Officials said in a memorandum in support of their motion that the ruling, absent a stay, may enable thousands of immigrants to enter the country without paying the fee.

“The Court’s order thus threatens American workers’ wages and jobs, undermining the American economy and national security,” lawyers stated. “This Court should immediately stay its order.”

The department says that the judge should act because the government is likely to succeed on appeal, describing his decision as wrong in part because the fee is not a tax. “Even if the payment could be classified as a tax, that is irrelevant because the payment is justified under the immigration and commerce powers,” the memo says.

The judge has not yet ruled on the motion.

If he grants the motion, the ruling will be stayed until the appeals court decides on an appeal. If he rejects the motion, then the government could ask the appeals court to step in and stay his ruling until it decides the appeal.

Officials had previously said they’re confident the appeal will be successful.

President Donald Trump “has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is exactly what he did,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, told The Epoch Times in an email. “The H-1B program has been abused for decades, and President Trump finally took action to fix it. A federal judge in Washington already upheld a nearly identical order, and the Administration is confident this order will be reversed on appeal.”

A different judge in 2025 upheld the fee in a separate case. That judge said the president has the authority to increase the fee from between $2,000 and $5,000 to $100,000. An appeal in that case is pending.

Massachusetts and 19 other states brought the case that led to Sorokin’s ruling. In a statement after the ruling was handed down, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the ruling “protects the integrity of the H-1B visa program as a tool to address severe labor shortages in vital industries like education, healthcare, and medical research.”