A federal judge in Massachusetts has dismantled one of President Donald Trump’s most aggressive immigration moves, ruling on Monday, June 8, 2026, that his $100,000 fee on H-1B visas amounts to an unlawful tax that Congress never sanctioned. The 42-page decision from U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, vacates the policy in its entirety and hands a sweeping victory to the 20 Democratic state attorneys general who challenged it.
Sorokin’s ruling, issued from Boston, found that the Trump administration had stretched executive authority past its constitutional breaking point. The judge concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents broad power over the entry of noncitizens but stops well short of granting them the power to levy taxes.
“The substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called,” Sorokin wrote.
A Six-Figure Barrier for Skilled Workers
Trump announced the fee in September 2025, vaulting the cost of a new H-1B visa from the customary $2,000–$5,000 to an eye-watering $100,000. The visas are a lifeline for technology companies, universities, hospitals and other employers chasing highly skilled foreign talent. The federal government issues 65,000 such visas each year, plus an additional 20,000 reserved for workers with advanced degrees.
The September proclamation argued that H-1B holders undercut American workers by suppressing wages and that science, technology, engineering and math fields were being saturated by foreign labor. Court filings, however, paint a picture of immediate disruption. Few employers proved willing to pay the new charge, and panic spread quickly. On a Dubai-bound Emirates flight in San Francisco, some passengers demanded to get off the plane, fearful they would be locked out of the country if they left.
Even as the administration erected the six-figure wall for engineers and scientists, it rolled out a parallel program for the ultrawealthy. The so-called “Gold Card” visa, championed by Trump on September 19, 2025, offers wealthy foreigners and corporations a fast-track route into the United States for a $1 million payment.
The Tax Question at the Heart of the Ruling
The Trump administration made the case that the executive branch had the authority to impose the charge as a financial penalty, citing the president’s power to restrict the entry of foreigners deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” Sorokin was unmoved. He found that federal agencies had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by skipping notice-and-comment rule making, and he leaned on a February 2026 Supreme Court ruling that concluded tariffs Trump imposed in 2025 were taxes — and that the president had no authority to impose them.
“While the Executive has broad discretion over the admission and exclusion of aliens, … that discretion is not boundless,” Sorokin wrote, adding that the policy “imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress.”
The White House signaled it would appeal. Spokesperson Taylor Rogers said that Trump has “clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests.” Trump himself was blunter Monday evening. “These federal judges are really giving us a hard time,” he said. “They’re hurting our country very badly.”
A MAGA Civil War Over Foreign Talent
The decision lands squarely in the middle of a long-running feud inside Trump’s political coalition. Silicon Valley conservatives, led by Elon Musk — himself a former visa holder — argue that foreign engineers and scientists are indispensable to American leadership in artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing. Nationalist hardliners see the program as a wage-suppression scheme. Steve Bannon has cast H-1B as a vehicle for replacing American workers with cheaper foreign labor, while Fox News host Laura Ingraham has argued companies use the visas to bypass U.S. graduates.
Trump inflamed his base during an interview with Ingraham in October 2025 when he defended the visa, conceding the country did not have enough talented workers. He later doubled down at a U.S.-Saudi investment forum, pointing to massive chip manufacturing projects in Arizona that require imported expertise to get off the ground.
Another Judicial Setback
Sorokin’s ruling continues a pattern. In 2025, he became the fourth judge to issue a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship, finding the policy likely unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. That dispute has since reached the Supreme Court, where a ruling is expected.
Since returning to office, Trump has pushed a sweeping immigration crackdown that includes tighter visa rules, expanded deportation initiatives and efforts to limit asylum access. The forthcoming appeal of Sorokin’s H-1B decision is poised to test, once again, just how far executive power can stretch before colliding with the Constitution’s clear assignment of taxing authority to Congress.
