A federal judge struck down President Donald Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions on Monday, reported Fox News, ruling that the policy amounted to an unauthorized tax that the executive branch cannot impose without congressional approval.
The judge is right on the law. Trump is right on the policy. The Republican-controlled Congress is the actual failure here. And the Democrats who celebrated this ruling just exposed the hypocrisy at the heart of their economic platform.
They claim they want higher wages for workers. They claim they are defending American citizens. Well, Trump’s order would have required companies to foot the bill for the training to provide American citizens with high-paying jobs instead of importing low-cost talent… and Democrats are celebrating the order’s death.
Explain to me how that is working for the American people.
The H-1B visa program was designed to bring highly skilled foreign workers into the United States for specialty occupations. It has been abused for decades. Major corporations use it to import cheaper labor for positions American workers could and should fill. The standard fee before Trump's order was approximately $2,000 to $5,000. When you are hiring employees making six figures out of the gate, that is a bargain.
When I was managing hotels and restaurants, the cost of training our lowest-skilled employees was more than that. So, if it costs us $10,000 to train a houseman, it makes perfect sense for corporations to do plug-and-play for a six-figure position and get away with only paying $5,000 rather than training the employee themselves.
A $100,000 fee changes the math. Companies that genuinely need a foreign specialist will pay for it. Companies that are simply trying to cut labor costs by replacing Americans will look elsewhere, which would include training and developing American workers for those positions.
We cannot allow American citizens to fall behind. We need to encourage development from within. That means making it expensive enough for corporations to import labor that could easily be a good-paying job that goes to a legal American citizen or resident.
Here is the bonus to Trump’s order… the companies are paying the cost of the education and/or training, not the worker. No big student loan to pay off or private debt to fund the education. You graduate from school or training with a six-figure salary that goes right into the bank.
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, an Obama appointee, ruled correctly that the President cannot unilaterally impose what amounts to a tax. The Constitution gives Congress that power. If a $100,000 fee on H-1B petitions is good policy, and it is, then Congress should pass it legislatively.
So why hasn't a Republican-controlled Congress passed this?
The Republican Party holds the House. The Republican Party holds the Senate. The Republican Party has spent the entire second Trump term watching the executive branch try to do what Congress should have done through legislation, then watching federal judges strike down the executive orders because Congress did not act.
Trump's H-1B order is one in a long pattern. The anti-weaponization fund. The ICE funding mechanisms. Various tariff structures. The pattern is the same. The president acts through executive order because Congress will not act through legislation. The courts strike down the executive orders because they exceed presidential authority. And the underlying policy never actually gets done.
This is not a Trump failure. This is a congressional Republican failure. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), and the Republican conference need to start passing the legislation that Trump is being forced to attempt by executive order. The president cannot do their job for them while complying with the Constitution.
The Democratic Party has spent 20 years arguing that the federal minimum wage should be $15, $20, or higher. They argue that American workers deserve higher pay. They argue that corporate profit margins should not come at the expense of working-class wages.
Then, 20 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit to block a policy that would have forced corporations to either pay American workers higher wages or pay a $100,000 fee to import cheaper foreign labor.
You cannot be for raising American wages and against making it expensive for corporations to import workers who undercut American wages. Pick one.
Put every Democrat in the House and Senate on the record. Ask them to explain their position. Watch them try to defend supporting higher minimum wages while opposing policies that would force corporations to actually pay them. And just as importantly, help fund the cost of educating workers to be able to perform these duties.
Think of a world where a significant number of high school students are no longer applying to colleges that they have to pay for, but instead to corporate educational programs, funded completely by the companies, that guarantee a six-figure salary upon completion.
The fee is right, and if I were Trump, I would have made it even more. Make it so expensive that companies are forced to educate Americans rather than pull from foreign talent pools. Do that, and you will be amazed at how interested American companies would become in educating and training Americans.
