Why the $100K H-1B Fee Lost in Massachusetts But Survived in D.C.

The same September 19, 2025 presidential proclamation imposing a $100,000 H-1B charge produced two incompatible-looking district court outcomes: it survived summary judgment in the Chamber of Commerce/AAU litigation in D.D.C. on December 23, 2025, but was vacated in Massachusetts on June 8, 2026 in a 20-state attorney general challenge. [1][2][3]

For universities, technology employers, and counsel trying to brief the $100,000 H-1B fee litigation in Q3 2026, the useful question is not whether one headline is wrong. The useful question is what each lawsuit asked the judge to see. In D.C., the case ran into presidential discretion under immigration-entry authority and the limits of INA/APA theories. In Massachusetts, the challengers recast the same charge as an unauthorized tax, and that theory found traction.

This is a litigation-risk analysis, not legal advice. Appeal activity, emergency stay practice, or later appellate review could change the operative landscape. Before a filing, board memo, or compliance instruction relies on either ruling, counsel should check Judge Sorokin’s June 8, 2026 order in Case No. 1:25-cv-293201, Dkt. 106, and the D.D.C. summary judgment order directly from the docket rather than relying only on press or law-firm summaries.

The D.C. Loss Was About Presidential Entry Power

The D.D.C. case was difficult because the proclamation was framed as an entry restriction. That matters. Once the government placed the charge inside the architecture of 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), the challengers had to persuade the court to look past the form of an entry measure and treat the fee as inconsistent with the H-1B statutory scheme or procedurally defective under the APA. Harris Sliwoski’s analysis describes the proclamation as relying on presidential authority to suspend or restrict entry, the same statutory terrain that often gives the executive branch a wide berth in immigration cases. [1]

That posture did not just give the government a merits argument. It also gave DOJ a threshold argument about reviewability. Forbes reported that DOJ’s response pressed nonreviewability and defended the measure as an exercise of presidential authority over the entry of noncitizens, rather than an agency fee schedule vulnerable to ordinary APA attack. [4]

A preemption theory can be forceful when a state tries to regulate a federally occupied immigration field. It is a different tool when used against a presidential proclamation issued under a broad immigration statute. The Chamber/AAU plaintiffs had to show not merely that the fee burdened the H-1B program, but that the proclamation conflicted with statutory limits Congress had already imposed. In that frame, the court’s comfort zone was narrow: deference to the President’s entry judgment, reluctance to second-guess the proclamation’s policy basis, and skepticism toward using the APA to reach presidential action directly.

That explains why the D.C. ruling should not be read as a broad judicial blessing of every executive immigration fee. It is better read as a ruling about the difficulty of attacking a presidential entry proclamation through INA and APA channels when the court accepts the government’s characterization of the measure as an entry restriction.

Massachusetts Asked a Different Question

The Massachusetts case did not have to win the same fight. The 20-state challengers framed the $100,000 charge as an unconstitutional tax, not simply as a bad immigration fee. That shifted the legal center of gravity from presidential discretion over entry to the constitutional allocation of taxing power.

Inside Higher Ed reported that Judge Sorokin tossed out the $100,000 H-1B fee on June 8, 2026, in a case brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general. [3] CDF’s account of the order states that the court treated the charge as unlawful because it operated like a tax imposed without congressional authorization, and that the court analogized the issue to recent Supreme Court tariff jurisprudence. [5]

That is the doctrinal move the D.C. loss did not foreclose. A court can give the President substantial discretion to restrict entry and still ask whether a six-figure mandatory payment is really a revenue device. The further the charge looks from cost recovery or immigration administration, the easier it becomes for challengers to argue that the executive branch has crossed from regulating entry into raising money.

The tariff analogy is important, but it should be handled carefully until the primary Supreme Court opinion and Sorokin order are checked directly. The available summaries support the narrower point that the Massachusetts court saw a separation-of-powers problem in an executive-imposed charge that resembled a tax. They do not, without primary-document review, support a sweeping claim that the Supreme Court has disabled all executive revenue measures connected to immigration or trade.

The Fee Had a Real Administrative Footprint, But That Was Not the Deciding Theory

The litigation was not abstract. Higher Ed Dive reported that USCIS had received 85 payments tied to the $100,000 fee, citing court filings. [6] That number matters because it shows the proclamation was not merely a threat sitting on a website. Employers and foreign workers had already encountered the charge in administration.

But the 85-payment figure should not be asked to do too much. Unless verified from the underlying docket, it is a reported litigation datapoint, not an independently audited implementation total. More importantly, it does not explain the split. A fee can be burdensome and still survive under a deferential immigration-entry frame; a fee can affect a relatively small reported payment population and still fail if the court sees an unauthorized tax.

The same caution applies to employer-impact evidence. SHRM reported employer concern after the proclamation and noted Walmart’s reported halt to H-1B hiring activity in response to the fee. [7] Those facts explain why business groups and higher-education institutions cared urgently. They do not substitute for the statutory hook, the theory of review, or the remedy.

Why the Same Proclamation Could Survive One Court and Fall in Another

The cleanest way to read the split is to separate what each court was being asked to classify.

• In D.D.C., the key classification question was whether the proclamation fit within presidential immigration-entry authority and resisted INA/APA attack.
• In Massachusetts, the key classification question was whether the $100,000 charge was a tax the executive branch could not impose without Congress.
• The first frame favors executive discretion; the second frame triggers separation-of-powers limits.
• The factual burden on employers mattered to standing, urgency, and equities, but it was not the main reason the two outcomes diverged.

This is why articles that say only that “a court struck down the fee” are incomplete. The court was the District of Massachusetts; the date was June 8, 2026; the successful theory was unconstitutional taxation; and another federal court had already allowed the same fee to survive under a different set of arguments. [2][3][5]

Forum also matters, though it should not be overstated. The available sources support the modest conclusion that D. Mass. was more receptive to the tax theory than D.D.C. was to the INA/APA challenge. They do not prove that one circuit will necessarily affirm and the other would necessarily reverse. District court splits are signals, not final maps.

Practical Implications for Counsel

For employers and universities, the immediate task is not to pick the more emotionally satisfying ruling. It is to track which theory governs the next procedural event. If DOJ seeks a stay, the questions may move quickly from merits to likelihood of success, irreparable harm, equities, and public interest. If appellate briefing develops, the characterization fight will likely sharpen: entry restriction or tax.

Risk teams should also avoid treating “immigration authority” as a single undifferentiated block. The site’s prior coverage of APA and ultra vires challenges to TSA-ICE passenger data sharing turns on agency authority and reviewability; the Daniel Adongo/Laken Riley Act due-process analysis turns on detention procedure and individual process; and the ICE contract preemption ruling turns on the boundary between federal immigration enforcement and state law. The H-1B fee split belongs in that same working file, but its pressure point is different: the line between regulating entry and raising revenue.

That distinction affects how a memo should be written. A board update focused only on business disruption will miss the legal reason Massachusetts mattered. A memo focused only on Massachusetts will miss why the D.C. loss remains relevant if a later court treats the proclamation as an entry measure. The safer formulation is narrower: the fee has now been held vulnerable when framed as an unauthorized tax, but it has already survived when challenged through INA preemption and APA theories.

What the Split Signals for Future Executive Immigration Actions

The Massachusetts ruling gives future challengers a route around the heaviest deference problems. If an executive immigration measure extracts money in a way that looks detached from administrative cost or statutory fee authority, challengers will likely ask courts to treat the case less like an entry dispute and more like an Article I problem.

That does not mean executive immigration fees are generally doomed. The D.C. result remains a warning that attacks framed as limits on presidential discretion under § 1182(f), or as APA challenges to presidential action, may face a steep climb. The Massachusetts result shows that the same executive action can look different when the legal theory forces the court to ask who has the power to impose a charge of this kind.

For now, the split is best treated as a live litigation-risk marker. The Massachusetts ruling exposes a route of attack the D.C. loss did not foreclose. DOJ appeal activity, emergency stay practice, or later appellate review could narrow that route or erase it. Practitioners should read the signal with restraint: challenges framed as limits on presidential immigration discretion may face a harder path than challenges that recast the same action as an unauthorized tax.

References

1. The $100,000 H-1B: An Analysis, Harris Sliwoski
2. Chamber of Commerce v. DHS, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
3. Federal Judge Tosses Out $100K H-1B Fee, Inside Higher Ed, June 9, 2026
4. DOJ Files Response To Immigration Lawsuit Against $100,000 H-1B Fee, Forbes, December 2, 2025
5. US District Court Rules $100,000 H-1B Fee Is Unlawful, CDF Labor Law
6. Higher Ed Groups Sue Trump Over $100K H-1B Visa Fee, Higher Ed Dive
7. Trump H-1B Fee Sparks Lawsuit, SHRM