Obama-appointed judge who blocked Trump birthright citizenship order strikes again, throws out visa overhaul

By Fox News · Fox News

An Obama-appointed federal judge who previously blocked President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order has again dealt a major setback to the administration by striking down Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa payment requirement and declaring the policy unlawful. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin of Massachusetts ruled Monday that the Trump administration lacked the authority to impose the hefty payment on employers seeking new H-1B visas, finding that the requirement amounted to a tax that only Congress has the constitutional power to impose. In Monday's 42-page decision , Sorokin sided with a coalition of 20 states that challenged Trump's September 2025 proclamation creating a new $100,000 payment requirement for employers filing petitions for foreign workers under the H-1B visa program , which allows U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers. Approximately 65,000 foreign workers are issued a H-1B visa each year. TRUMP’S $100K H-1B VISA OVERHAUL COULD HIT TECH GIANTS LIKE AMAZON AND MICROSOFT HARDEST Before Trump's proclamation, employers typically paid between $2,000 and $5,000 in filing fees to sponsor an H-1B worker, depending on the type of application and the size of the company. The administration had argued that the measure was necessary to curb abuse of the visa system and protect American workers. Trump's proclamation stated that the H-1B program had been exploited to replace U.S. workers with lower-paid foreign labor and that the new payment would help address those concerns. Sorokin rejected the administration's legal justification, finding that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents broad authority over the entry of noncitizens but does not authorize them to impose taxes. "While the Executive has broad discretion over the admission and exclusion of aliens, ... that discretion is not boundless," Sorokin wrote, referring to previous case law . Sorokin concluded that the payment functioned as a tax rather than a permissible immi…