Overview
- A U.S. district court in Boston struck down the $100,000 charge on June 8, finding it functioned as a tax that the President lacked authority to impose and that agencies violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
- The Justice Department filed notice to appeal the ruling, which could lead the First Circuit to review the case or to a government request for a stay that would temporarily reinstate the fee.
- Other Trump administration H-1B changes remain in force or proposed, including a March lottery that weights selection toward higher-paid workers and Department of Labor draft rules that would raise prevailing wage floors.
- Employers have already changed behavior: USCIS reported roughly 211,000 employer registrations for the fiscal 2027 lottery, a drop of more than 38% from the prior year, and many companies paused or reassessed filings because of the fee and rule changes.
- Separate state actions and investigations, such as Texas attorney general probes of alleged visa fraud, add a law-enforcement layer that could further reshape who can sponsor H-1B workers and how petitions are vetted while litigation proceeds.