A second federal judge blocked President Trump’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, undercutting a bid to stop firms from replacing American workers with cheaper foreign labor.
NY Post reported that U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, California, on Wednesday halted the fee pending a lawsuit filed in October by a coalition of unions, employers, and nonprofits.
Gilliam ruled that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department failed to follow necessary rule-making processes before putting Trump’s fee in place. The order blocks those agencies from enforcing it while the case proceeds.
Trump imposed the charge to curb abuse of the H-1B program. He has said businesses replaced American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Technology firms lean especially hard on these visas.
The fee dwarfs the old costs. Employers once paid roughly $2,000 to $5,000. The new price tag hits $100,000 on new visas.
Gilliam, appointed by then-President Barack Obama, sided with the plaintiffs. Democracy Forward, a left-leaning legal group, represents the coalition. Lawyer Steve Bressler applauded the outcome.
Bressler said in a statement:
"Today’s decision... protects a system that was thrown into chaos overnight,"
Reuters reported the same core findings: Gilliam’s process ruling, the temporary block, and the earlier Boston order that first paused the fee.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This was not the first judicial stop. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the fee in June in a separate case brought by 20 states. A Boston-based appeals court in July declined to pause that decision. That fight continues to shape the landscape, including when the First Circuit refused to reinstate the charge.
Lawsuits have focused on whether a president can set such a fee unilaterally. Trump invoked presidential power under federal immigration law to restrict entry of certain foreign nationals when their admission would be detrimental to U.S. interests.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a third lawsuit. The country’s largest business lobbying group is appealing a judge’s decision that rejected its claims Trump lacked authority to set the fee.
In August, the Department of Homeland Security moved to adopt a permanent fee of about $103,000. Once finalized, that rule will almost certainly face fresh court challenges and sits alongside other H-1B changes, including a DHS proposal to end the 60-day grace period for workers who lose their jobs.
The original $100,000 fee was set to expire September 21. Trump recently extended it for another year. His administration also ordered enhanced vetting of H-1B applicants and proposed a new selection process that would favor higher-skilled and better-paid workers.
Those steps fit a broader enforcement push, including a Vance-led probe into H-1B visa fraud aimed at policing abuse rather than expanding loopholes.
The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas each year, plus another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees. Approvals last three to six years. For decades, employers treated the old low fees as a routine cost of bringing in foreign talent.
Trump’s $100,000 charge changed the math overnight. Critics in business and labor call it chaos. Supporters call it a long-overdue price for a program that too often undercut U.S. workers. The same tension surfaces when tech voices attack hire-Americans efforts, as when a Y Combinator executive labeled Vance’s push “DEI” and administration officials fired back.
Parallel moves to tighten the program keep coming. The administration has also moved to strip the 60-day grace period from H-1B holders who lose their jobs, another step that raises the cost of treating foreign labor as disposable and endlessly replaceable.
Gilliam’s order does not end the policy fight. It freezes implementation of the $100,000 fee in this case while litigation continues. The Boston injunction remains in play. The Chamber’s appeal is pending. DHS is still advancing its permanent-fee track.
American workers who lost jobs to cheaper H-1B hires do not get a do-over while the courts sort process arguments. Taxpayers and lawful residents live with the results of a system that rewarded outsourcing of opportunity.
Judges can pause a fee. They cannot erase the record of abuse that made the fee necessary in the first place.
