The Trump administration said Thursday it is appealing a judge's finding that President Donald Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee is an unlawful tax.
The federal government filed a notice of appeal days after U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin in Massachusetts ruled the president lacked authority to impose a $100,000 payment for new H-1B visa petitions. The H-1B visa provides skilled workers who are not U.S. citizens temporary permission to work in the country.
On Monday, Judge Sorokin determined the visa fee was a tax, not a "regulatory payment," as the government had argued, and that the Immigration and Nationality Act did not give the president the authority to impose a tax. The judge declared the fee unlawful and vacated it.
Trump had announced the fee in September, describing it at the time as a response to abuses of the H-1B visa program and concerns about "a large scale replacement" in the workforce of Americans with foreign employees.
Monday's ruling, which came in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of states led by California, is the second decision to address the legality of the visa payment.
A judge in D.C., U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, previously reached the opposite conclusion and said Trump had the authority to impose the fee as part of his power to restrict the entry of noncitizens into the U.S. The D.C. Circuit is currently reviewing the decision.
The states are represented by the offices of their respective attorneys general, including Michael L. Newman, Marissa Malouff, James E. Stanley, Denise Levey, Lorraine Lopez, James E. Richardson and Jeanelly Orozco Alcalá of the California Attorney General's Office and Michelle Pascucci, Nita K. Klunder, Gerard J. Cedrone and Julia S. Canney of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.
The federal government is represented by Tiberius Davis, David J. Byerley and Jeffrey Alderette of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division's Office of Immigration Litigation.
The case is State of California et al. v. Noem et al., case number 1:25-cv-13829, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Read more at: https://www.law360.com/immigration/articles/2488769?nl_pk=c8b1bc97-3db5-42d2-9ee1-f194ede68e7a&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=4?copied=1