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A federal judge in California on Wednesday struck down policies from the administration of President Donald Trump that required employers to pay $100,000 for each new H-1B visa petition, ruling that immigration agencies implemented them without following the procedures required by law.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, partially granted a request for a preliminary injunction filed by several companies and organizations that challenged the legality of the fee, which was proclaimed by Trump in September 2025, according to the ruling reviewed by EFE.
The ruling orders the agencies to annul and set aside the policies through which the Department of Homeland Security and other authorities implemented the fee, and prohibits the agencies and those acting under their direction from continuing to apply them until they complete a notice and public comment process in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act.
The magistrate concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to demonstrate that the agencies acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner by failing to study alternatives or the interests of the affected entities before imposing the new requirement.
He also determined that the government failed to meet the obligation to subject these policies to a public participation process, given that without those agency rules, the $100,000 fee could not be applied.
The Trump proclamation, signed on September 19, 2025, established the additional $100,000 fee for new H-1B petitions and was extended by the president on September 18 until September 2027.
The government justified the measure at the time as a response to the alleged "systemic abuse" of the visa program for specialized foreign workers.
The case thus faces conflicting judicial decisions: while a federal court in Washington confirmed the president's authority to impose the fee in 2025, federal courts in Massachusetts and now California have struck down the policies used to implement it. EFE
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