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Twenty states have sued the Trump administration over its new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas.
“President Trump’s illegal $100,000 H-1B visa fee creates unnecessary—and illegal—financial burdens on California public employers and other providers of vital services, exacerbating labor shortages in key sectors,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.
The lawsuit claims the fee is unconstitutional, because the Trump administration exceeded the authority granted by Congress and did not undertake a notice-and-comment process.
President Trump implemented the $100,000 fee in mid-September, saying the measure was intended to reduce “systematic abuse” of the high-skilled visa system and protect US workers, especially in fields like science, technology and engineering.
The states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin—argue that Congress should make decisions about how the program is administered, and that the Trump administration will selectively enforce the fees on employers it doesn’t like. They also argue the new fee will worsen labor shortages, especially in education.
The H-1B visa system has been a target for the Trump administration as part of its wide-ranging immigration and labor reforms.
In December, potential reforms to the scheme led to an acrimonious public row. Ill-advised comments from Vivek Ramaswamy about Americans’ failings in the job market—including a bizarre suggestion that Americans spend too much time idolizing Zach and Slater from Saved by the Bell and have too many sleepovers when they could be studying—led to his removal from DOGE and also caused the first open break between Elon Musk and the Trump administration.
Critics of the H-1B program have argued that it allows companies to suppress wages, especially in the tech sector, and disadvantages American workers.
According to government data, India was by far the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of all approved visas, with China accounting for 11.7%.
In the first half of 2025, Amazon.com and its cloud-computing unit, AWS, received approval for more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Microsoft and Meta Platforms were granted over 5,000 H-1B visa approvals each.
At the beginning of last month, it was announced that close to 200 companies were being investigated for abusing the H-1B system.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer said 175 investigations were now taking place into companies using the H-1B system.
The enforcement initiative, called “Project Firewall,” began in September, when President Trump announced the addition of a $100,000 fee for H-1B petitions.
“We have over 175 investigations that we’ve opened, and for the first time in history, as a Secretary of Labor, I have signed those investigations personally, because we want to make sure that these companies are not abusing. We want to make sure that they’re protecting the American worker, first by one: posting the jobs available to Americans.
“Two: if they do need to use the H-1B, Visa Program, within the program, we have to make sure that they’re paying those fair wages, not to depress the American wages. And if that employee leaves that company, they have to make sure that they’re posting that with the government so that we know where those employers have gone and those employees.
“So it’s been somewhat of a problem, but we want to protect the American worker first, and Project Firewall will do that. We will be actively investigating these companies if they’re getting in the way of protecting foreign workers over American ones.”
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