WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday moved to impose a more than USD 100,000 fee on employers hiring foreign workers through a highly-skilled visa program, after facing a legal setback in an earlier effort.
Curbing immigration — both undocumented and lawful — has been a key goal of the Republican leader and a persistent demand of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.
The USD 103,265 fee for H-1B visas would serve as a “revenue mechanism” to recoup the costs of administering the lawful immigration system, the Department of Homeland Security said in its new proposed rule.
The Trump administration has argued the visa program has been exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers, and in September 2025 issued a presidential proclamation imposing a USD 100,000 fee to combat what it called “systemic abuse.”
But a federal judge in June blocked that order, siding with 20 Democratic-led states in a lawsuit that contended the fee constituted an unlawful tax that bypassed Congressional authority.
Another federal judge in December 2025 upheld the same action, finding the president had “broad statutory authority” to address “a problem he perceives to be a matter of economic and national security.” That ruling is being appealed.
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