The Exploitation of the H-1B Visa Program, by Destiny Lugo

On Monday, federal Judge Leo Sorokin struck down the H-1B visa fee of $100,000, ruling that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The Trump administration’s fee was intended to encourage the employment of Americans while discouraging employers from seeking out specialized foreign labor. Under the policy, individual companies would have had to pay $100,000 to the government annually in addition to paying the wages of the foreign laborer.

Obama appointee Sorokin explained that this fee was a tax that Congress had not given the executive branch the authority to impose. The H-1B policy was created in 1990, and applications had a fee of around $2,000 to $5,000 each before Trump’s Sept. 19, 2025 proclamation. …