Court blocks $100,000 H-1B visa fee, appeal pending

Current Status

Judge Leo Sorokin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the $100,000 H-1B visa fee in State of California et al. v. Mullin, No. 25-13829-LTS, on June 8, 2026, holding that the fee imposed under Proclamation 10973 was unlawful.[1] Four days later, on June 12, he stayed the ruling pending the government’s appeal to the 1st Circuit, so the fee remains technically enforceable as of July 25, 2026 while appellate proceedings continue.[2]

That status language matters more than the headline. The Massachusetts order is strong authority for employers and challengers, but a filing desk still has to treat the $100,000 amount as a live cost unless and until the stay is lifted, the 1st Circuit affirms without a stay, the D.C. Circuit changes the parallel posture, or the Supreme Court intervenes.

What the Massachusetts Court Held

The court vacated the fee on two independent grounds. First, Judge Sorokin treated the $100,000 charge as an unconstitutional tax that Congress had not authorized the president to impose through INA §§ 212(f) and 215(a). The ruling tied that conclusion to the Supreme Court’s February 2026 reasoning in Learning Resources v. Trump and to NFIB v. Sebelius, drawing a line between regulating entry and imposing a revenue-raising charge Congress did not enact.[1]

The scale of the charge made the tax analysis concrete. Before Proclamation 10973, employer-side H-1B filing costs were described in the range of $960 to $7,595 per petition, depending on the petition and applicable statutory fees.[3][4] A mandatory $100,000 payment for covered petitions was not a marginal adjustment to an existing filing schedule; it was the feature that changed the legal character of the program in the court’s view.

Second, the court held that the government’s implementation violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The ruling faulted the government for failing to justify bypassing notice-and-comment procedures, failing to consider impacts on healthcare and education hiring, and failing to supply a valid emergency justification for the immediate fee structure.[1]

Those APA holdings are useful because they do not depend entirely on the constitutional-tax theory. If an appellate court narrows the tax holding, the administrative-law defects still give challengers a separate route to defend vacatur or seek narrower relief. For client counseling, that means the Massachusetts order is not just a broad objection to presidential immigration authority; it is also a record-based critique of the way the fee was imposed.

Who Was Covered by the Fee

The $100,000 fee did not apply to every H-1B filing. It applied to new H-1B petitions for beneficiaries outside the United States, generally the consular-processing population. In-country change-of-status petitions and extension petitions were not subject to the fee even before the Massachusetts vacatur.[3]

That carve-out is not a footnote for employers. A company budgeting an extension for an existing H-1B worker was in a different position from a company planning a new petition for a beneficiary abroad. A status update that says only “court blocks $100,000 H-1B fee” can easily cause the wrong internal audience to believe a cost was removed from a filing category where it never applied, or that a stayed vacatur has already changed the payment rule for a covered petition.

The Payment Record Shows Practical Suppression, Not Just Litigation Noise

Only 85 payments of the $100,000 fee had been made as of February 15, 2026.[5] That figure does not prove why every employer did or did not file, and it should not be converted into a sweeping labor-market claim. It does, however, show why the court’s ruling has immediate budgeting significance: the fee was large enough that many covered filings apparently did not proceed with payment.

For a risk memo, the useful point is narrower than “the H-1B system changed.” The fee created a filing-cost cliff for a particular group of new petitions involving beneficiaries outside the United States. The Massachusetts order attacks that cliff, but the stay keeps the cliff in the current decision tree.

Why the Stay Controls Today’s Advice

A vacatur normally sounds like the end of the payment obligation. Here, the June 12 stay pending appeal prevents that clean result. The government noticed an appeal, and the district court allowed the challenged fee to remain in effect while the 1st Circuit process moves forward.[2]

The practical instruction is therefore status-sensitive: employers can cite the Massachusetts ruling as a major merits development, but they should not assume the fee has disappeared from an active filing budget. If a covered petition must be filed while the stay remains in place, the fee remains part of the risk calculation.

Parallel Proceedings to Monitor

The Massachusetts ruling is not the only federal-court treatment of Proclamation 10973. In Chamber of Commerce v. Trump, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld the fee in December 2025. The D.C. Circuit heard argument in March 2026 and had not issued a decision as of July 25, 2026.[6]

That creates a direct monitoring problem. One district court has vacated the fee and another has upheld it. The 1st Circuit and D.C. Circuit may not move on the same schedule, and either appellate ruling could become the next controlling development for national strategy. Supreme Court review is probable in that posture, but no Supreme Court petition had been filed as of July 25, 2026.[6]

A third case, Global Nurse Force v. Trump, remains pending in the Northern District of California.[6] It does not change the immediate status of the Massachusetts stay, but it belongs on the same watchlist because another district-court order could affect briefing, settlement posture, or the perceived urgency of appellate review.

Source Note for Risk Digest Use

This entry is a structured court-risk record rather than an AI sanctions entry. It fits the same tracking discipline: jurisdiction, court, judge, docket, ruling date, source document, status, stay posture, and related proceedings. The reason to include it is not that it expands immigration coverage for its own sake; it is that a stayed district-court vacatur with conflicting authority creates exactly the kind of operational ambiguity that a risk database is supposed to preserve rather than flatten.

For now, the defensible operational judgment is limited. The Massachusetts vacatur is strong authority for challenge and client argument. Because the vacatur is stayed and a conflicting D.D.C. ruling remains in the appellate mix, practitioners should still treat the $100,000 fee as enforceable for covered petitions until the 1st Circuit, the D.C. Circuit, or the Supreme Court changes the status.

References

1. Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee is unlawful, US judge rules, Reuters, June 8, 2026.
2. Trump Administration Appeals Ruling Striking Down $100,000 H-1B Fee Requirement, Ogletree Deakins.
3. Immigration, Now, At Least for a While, Costs Less: Federal Court Blocks $100K Fee for H-1B Visas, Foley & Lardner, June 2026.
4. Federal Judge Strikes Down Trump’s H-1B Fee, Fisher Phillips.
5. H-1B visa fee, AP News.
6. United States: Federal court rules H-1B proclamation implementation unlawful, vacates $100,000 H-1B visa fee; government to appeal, BAL.