4 days ago
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President Donald Trump's $100,000 visa fee for H-1B applicants has hit a new legal roadblock.
A federal judge at a US District Court in Massachusetts ruled Monday that the fee violates the Constitution's Administrative Procedure Act.
Judge Leo Sorokin found that the fee is "unlawful," according to his ruling. Sorokin said the fee constitutes a tax and requires congressional approval to implement.
Trump's implementation of the $100,000 fee for new petitions using an executive order last year "exceeds the scope of the President's discretionary authority" under US immigration law, Sorokin wrote.
The fee has faced legal challenges since Trump signed the executive order in September.
The President has argued that companies have used the visa to replace US workers. Employees at tech companies are among the most common applicants for the visas.
While the battle over whether the fee is constitutional will likely continue, the order has already had an effect. The number of H-1B visa applications from Big Tech companies such as Google and Microsoft fell at the end of last year after Trump signed the executive order.
The fee was previously as much as $5,000 per visa before Trump made the change last year.
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Alex Bitter is a senior retail reporter covering the gig economy, food, and retail. His work focuses major gig delivery and ride-hailing apps, including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Walmart's Spark. He is interested in everything from what it's like to work on the apps to the companies' business strategies.Some of his recent stories feature gig workers who have been deactivated on the apps, DoorDash hiring traditional employees to make deliveries, gig workers' use of bots, and gig work expanding into new professions, such as nursing.Alex has also written about Aldi's US expansion, Starbucks' turnaround efforts, and the fallout from Kraft-Heinz's budget cutting. Convenience store chain Sheetz ended its "smile policy" after his reporting.Before joining Insider in September 2020, he wrote about consumer and retail companies for S&P Global Market Intelligence. He's a graduate of the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and grew up on the Big Island.Alex lives in the Washington, DC, area, where you can find him studying ancient coins or searching for Civil War artifacts with his metal detector in his free time.Got a tip? Reach out at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (808) 854-4501.
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