# COLUMN: A judge strikes down Trump's $100,000 surcharge on H-1B visas

> On June 8, 2026, federal judge Leo Sorokin of the Boston district court struck down the $100,000 surcharge the Trump administration had imposed on new H-1B visa applications for skilled foreign workers. The ruling is national in scope. It is unequivocal in its reasoning: the measure was illegal, exceeded presidential authority, was procedurally deficient, arbitrary and capricio

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Column
- Published: 2026-06-29
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-un-juge-annule-la-redevance-trump-de-100-000-sur-les-visas-h-1b

## Key takeaways

- The surcharge was set by a presidential proclamation dated September 19, 2025, and took effect September 21, 2025.
- Sorokin relied on a February 2026 Supreme Court decision striking down Trump's tariffs on similar grounds.
- The case was brought by 20 state attorneys general; a December 2025 Washington, D.C. ruling upheld the surcharge in a separate Chamber of Commerce challenge.
- USCIS reported only 85 surcharge payments in the nine months after it took effect, per a March 2026 filing.
- The administration said it was confident of reversal on appeal, and the First Circuit could grant a stay that would reactivate the surcharge.

## Introduction: The court says what economists have known since September 2025

### June 8, 2026, Boston: the $100,000 surcharge is declared illegal

On **June 8, 2026**, federal judge **Leo Sorokin** of the **Boston district court** struck down the **$100,000 surcharge** the Trump administration had imposed on new **H-1B visa** applications for skilled foreign workers. The ruling is national in scope. It is unequivocal in its reasoning: the measure was illegal, exceeded presidential authority, was procedurally deficient, arbitrary and capricious, and constituted in reality a **tax** — which only the U.S. Congress has the power to levy.

This surcharge had been imposed by a **presidential proclamation** dated September 19, 2025, taking effect on **September 21, 2025**. In less than a year, it had multiplied H-1B application costs by an astronomical factor: standard regulatory and statutory fees ranged from **$960 to $7,595** before the proclamation. With the **$100,000 surcharge**, costs became inaccessible for a large share of American employers — hospitals, universities, schools, technology SMEs, startups. The effects were immediate and documented.

### A tax disguised as an immigration surcharge

Judge **Sorokin** was direct in his formulation: **"Here, the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called."** That sentence matters. It says not only that the measure was poorly conceived or excessive. It says it was fundamentally unconstitutional, because it usurped a power reserved exclusively to the **legislative branch** by the U.S. Constitution. The president does not have the right to levy taxes by executive order, regardless of the administrative packaging applied.

To support this reasoning, Sorokin drew on a **February 2026 Supreme Court decision** striking down Trump's tariffs on similar grounds: if the president lacks the authority to impose tariffs without congressional authorization, he likewise lacks the authority to impose a **$100,000 tax** on visa applications by invoking his power to restrict entry of foreigners deemed **"detrimental to the interests of the United States."** Both cases share the same fundamental **legal flaw**.

*The coherence of the American **judicial system** in this case deserves recognition. Twice in a matter of months — on tariffs, then on the H-1B surcharge — the courts told Trump the same thing: you do not have this power. The Constitution does not change to suit any administration's political convenience.*

## The H-1B visa: a cornerstone of American innovation

### What H-1B visas actually represent for the economy

The **H-1B visa program** allows American companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations requiring highly specialized theoretical knowledge. In practice, this covers an extraordinarily broad range: **software engineers, researchers, physicians**, university professors, pharmaceutical researchers, architects, specialized accountants. These workers do not replace qualified available Americans — employers must attest, under penalty of sanctions, that they cannot find qualified American candidates for these positions.

The economic reality is documented by dozens of independent studies: **H-1B workers** are **net creators** of American jobs. The companies they run, co-found, or develop employ large numbers of **American citizens**. A significant share of **Silicon Valley** entrepreneurs were initially H-1B visa holders. Hospitals in rural areas that cannot recruit American physicians depend on these visas to maintain their medical services. Research universities depend on these visas to attract the world's best minds.

### The Trump proclamation: an attack on American innovation

The **September 2025 proclamation** described the **H-1B program** as having been designed to **"replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor."** That characterization is factually inaccurate, contradicted by available data on the **salary levels** and qualifications of H-1B visa holders — the majority of whom are at compensation levels well above the median American salary in their respective sectors.

But the proclamation had concrete effects on real institutions. **Hospitals** struggled to recruit specialist physicians in underserved areas. **Universities** saw promising candidates choose positions in Canada, Germany, or Australia rather than impose a $100,000 surcharge on their employers. **Schools** lost mathematics and **science teachers**. That is not protection of American workers. It is **economic self-sabotage**.

*When a Midwestern university loses a molecular biology researcher because its employer cannot afford a $100,000 surcharge, the average American does not benefit from that policy. China does — its laboratories welcome that researcher with open arms. The irony is complete.*

## The 20 state attorneys general who brought the case

### A **bipartisan** coalition defending the real economy

Judge Sorokin's decision follows a summary judgment granted to the plaintiffs in the case: **20 state attorneys general** who had challenged the constitutionality of the surcharge. This coalition includes states whose economies are deeply tied to the H-1B program — states home to large concentrations of **technology companies**, research institutions, and medical centers. Their central argument was precisely the one Judge Sorokin accepted: the surcharge was a tax that only Congress can levy.

It is significant that this legal action was brought by state attorneys general — the guardians of the economic and legal interests of their respective states — rather than solely by large technology companies. That signals that the surcharge's effects were felt well beyond Silicon Valley: in regional **hospitals**, public **research universities**, and school systems struggling to recruit **specialized teachers**. The surcharge affected real America, not just coastal tech.

### The Chamber of Commerce on a parallel front: two simultaneous challenges

Simultaneously with the attorneys general's lawsuit, the **U.S. Chamber of Commerce** had also challenged the surcharge in court. In **December 2025**, a federal judge in **Washington, D.C.**, issued a contradictory ruling — upholding the surcharge and rejecting the Chamber's injunction request. That judge concluded the administration had the right to impose the measure under federal immigration law. The Chamber had appealed.

This split in jurisprudence — one ruling striking down the surcharge in Boston, another upholding it in D.C. — is precisely the type of divergence that leads to **Supreme Court** review. Immigration law specialists believe it is **"highly likely"** the Supreme Court will ultimately be called upon. Until then, the administration appealed Sorokin's ruling, and the appeals court could grant a **stay** during which the surcharge would be reactivated. **Legal uncertainty** remains.

*Two contradictory rulings from two different courts. The surcharge is legal, then illegal. Employers do not know whether it will still be in effect tomorrow. That is the state of American immigration law under Trump: a deliberate instability that imposes a considerable uncertainty premium on businesses. That is not governance. It is **managed chaos**.*

## The concrete impact on employers and workers

### Hospitals, universities, and schools directly hit

Since the surcharge took effect in **September 2025**, the hardest-hit sectors have been those most dependent on **H-1B workers** for positions that find no qualified American candidates. **Hospitals** — particularly in rural areas and small towns — struggled to recruit specialist physicians, specialized nurses, and medical technicians. Entire departments at some facilities were reduced or closed for lack of staff.

**Research universities** saw promising **doctoral candidates** and **postdoctoral researchers** choose Canadian, Australian, or European institutions offering simpler, less costly visa conditions. In a highly competitive global talent market, a $100,000 surcharge represented a massive competitive disadvantage for American institutions against their international rivals. **Schools** struggled to recruit mathematics and science teachers — two fields where the United States already faces a structural shortage of qualified candidates.

### 85 payments in nine months: the reality of impact

According to a **March 2026** filing by **USCIS** (the agency responsible for visas), the agency had received only **85 payments** of the $100,000 surcharge since it took effect in September 2025. That figure, compared to the **several hundred thousand H-1B petitions** normally processed annually, reveals that the surcharge had not merely discouraged some employers. It had discouraged nearly all of them. Most had chosen to wait for the outcome of the litigation, hire less-qualified American candidates, or delay their hiring plans.

Attorney **Ann Lee** advised her employer clients to be careful about letting their foreign employees travel abroad during the period of **legal uncertainty**: **"You wouldn't want to be caught off guard, stuck outside the country"** if the surcharge was reactivated while an employee was overseas. That warning illustrates the operational uncertainty created by a legally contested policy: companies can no longer plan their essential employees' travel with confidence.

*85 payments in nine months. That is the concrete balance sheet of the $100,000 surcharge — a policy that generated no substantial revenue, protected no American workers, but successfully discouraged thousands of hires in essential sectors. A total failure on every declared objective.*

## The Trump administration's reaction: displayed confidence, real uncertainty

### The White House promises appeal and projects confidence

The White House's official reaction to Judge Sorokin's ruling was predictable: spokesperson **Taylor Rogers** declared the administration was **"confident the ruling would be reversed on appeal."** That projected confidence is rhetorically necessary — acknowledging the legal weakness of the measure would have been politically costly with the electoral base supporting immigration restrictions. But on substance, that confidence is challenged by the very logic of Sorokin's ruling.

The judge applied the **February 2026 Supreme Court** reasoning on tariffs. If that argument convinced the Supreme Court on tariffs, it is difficult to imagine why it would not apply to the H-1B surcharge. The administration will need to present an argument distinguishing the two cases convincingly. Attorney **A. James Vazquez-Azpiri** acknowledged that an appeal would **"almost certainly"** be filed immediately by the government — but offered no guarantee it would succeed.

### The appellate stay: the surcharge could temporarily return

The most immediately important aspect for employers is the appellate **stay**. Once the administration appealed Sorokin's ruling, the **First Circuit** Court of Appeals maintained the surcharge's invalidation in effect — meaning USCIS could not, for now, collect the $100,000. But if the appellate court decides to grant a stay pending its review, the surcharge would be reactivated.

This scenario — invalidation, appeal, potential stay, temporary reactivation — illustrates the **chronic instability** created by an **immigration policy** that advances through **presidential proclamations** challenged in court rather than through stable legislation. For companies that must plan their hiring months in advance, this uncertainty carries a real and documented cost. It is not **immigration reform**. It is management by chaos.

*The administration knows its policy is legally contestable. It has known that from the start. It proceeds anyway, counting on judicial delays to impose its effects while remedies are pending. That is a deliberate strategy. And in the meantime, it is hospitals, universities, and schools that suffer.*

## The broader context: Trump immigration policy and skilled workers

### Internal tension between anti-immigration and pro-business forces

The H-1B surcharge reveals a deep tension within Trump's own political coalition. On one side, a nationalist electoral base that perceives immigration as a threat to American workers — including highly skilled immigration. On the other, a base of technology entrepreneurs and investors who support Trump for his economic deregulation, but who depend directly on the H-1B program to maintain their companies' competitiveness.

This tension is not new. It erupted publicly in January 2025 when **Elon Musk** and other technology figures close to Trump publicly defended the H-1B program against nationalist critics within the American right. The $100,000 surcharge represented a temporary victory for the nationalists. The **Sorokin ruling** represents, for now, a victory for the pro-business camp. The internal war within the Trump coalition on this issue is far from over.

### The H-1B program and the global technological competition with China

In the context of the **technological and geopolitical rivalry** between the **United States** and **China**, the H-1B surcharge took on an additional strategic dimension. China is investing massively to attract the world's best engineers and researchers — including those with American training who choose to return to Asia. The United States has traditionally enjoyed a considerable **competitive advantage** in retaining these talents, thanks in part to the H-1B program as a pathway to **permanent residency**.

By making the H-1B program extremely costly, the $100,000 surcharge pushed talent toward Canada, Australia, Germany — and potentially toward China. That is precisely the opposite of what a coherent geopolitical strategy against China should do. Trump's immigration policy on skilled workers directly contradicts his policy of technological confrontation with Beijing. This incoherence is not an administrative error. It is the consequence of a policy dictated by domestic political imperatives rather than coherent strategic vision.

*We want to beat China in the race for artificial intelligence, **semiconductors**, **biotechnology**. And we impose a $100,000 surcharge that pushes the best Indian and Korean engineers toward Toronto and Munich rather than San Francisco. A choice must be made: the anti-China rhetoric, or the policies that strengthen it.*

## The future of the H-1B program under the shadow of litigation

### The road to the Supreme Court: a likely path

With two contradictory federal court rulings — one striking down the surcharge in Boston, the other upholding it in Washington, D.C. — the **Supreme Court** will likely be called upon to resolve this question. The exact timeline depends on the speed of the appeals and the decisions of the intermediate appellate courts. But the fundamental question — the scope of presidential authority to impose immigration surcharges — is significant enough for the Supreme Court to want to settle it.

A definitive Supreme Court ruling would clarify the situation for employers, H-1B workers, and federal agencies. It would delimit what future administrations can do by executive order in the immigration domain. And depending on its content, it could either validate or definitively invalidate the Trump strategy of using executive orders to impose immigration measures Congress has not authorized. That is a major institutional stakes issue that goes well beyond the question of H-1B visas.

### What employers need to know now

In the immediate term, immigration law specialists converge on their advice: employers should not pay the $100,000 surcharge while the Sorokin ruling is in effect — but must closely monitor the appeals' progression. If a **stay** is granted by the First Circuit, the surcharge will be reactivated immediately. Employers with H-1B workers traveling abroad must be particularly vigilant: a change in legal status while an employee is outside the United States could create significant problems upon return.

The reality is this: the **legal instability** created by the Trump administration's immigration policy imposes a considerable planning and legal risk cost on American companies, regardless of the final litigation outcome. Even if the surcharge is definitively struck down, the months of deterrence will already have had their effects on hirings that will not happen, researchers who will have chosen other countries, talents who will have decided not to file H-1B applications. These costs are real. They are measurable. And they are the direct consequence of a policy imposed by executive order without solid **legal foundation**.

*I have covered immigration policies long enough to know that stability and predictability are worth as much as the content of the rules themselves. Companies can adapt to strict rules if they are stable. What they cannot manage is chronic unpredictability. And that is precisely what this administration imposes on them.*

## The worker protection argument: rebuttal by data

### What the H-1B salary data actually shows

The Trump administration's central argument for justifying the surcharge was that the H-1B program allowed companies to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. That argument is contradicted by data from **USCIS** and the **Department of Labor**. H-1B visa holders are paid, on average, salaries significantly above the median wages of their sectors. The minimum salary level required for an H-1B is substantially higher than the sectoral median.

The reality is the inverse of what the administration claimed: **H-1B workers create American employment** rather than destroy it. Startups founded by immigrants — many of whom came through the H-1B program — employ large numbers of American citizens. Academic studies have documented that each H-1B worker in the technology sector is associated on average with the creation of **several additional positions** filled by American workers. This economic reality is well established. The administration prefers to ignore it.

### Why protecting American workers actually requires the opposite

If the real objective were to protect American workers, the right approach would be to **strengthen sanctions** against the rare employers who abuse the program to underpay foreign workers, to better monitor wage compliance, and to invest in training Americans in the highly demanded technical skills. These measures are more politically complex and less spectacular than a $100,000 surcharge. But they would have real effects on real workers.

Instead, the administration chose a measure whose documented effects are: increasing costs for **rural hospitals**, reducing the recruitment capacity of research universities, discouraging technology talent from going to the United States, and helping America's geopolitical competitors recruit those same talents. That is not protection of American workers. That is **economic identity politics** — measures designed to signal an attitude, not to produce results.

*The real protection of American workers comes through education, training, investment in skills. Not through surcharges that drive away foreign talent without creating a single American job. That observation is not ideological. It is arithmetic.*

## The verdict of economists and stakeholders on the ground

### A rare consensus spanning private sector, public institutions, and academic experts

Rarely has an immigration policy generated such broad critical convergence. **Academic economists** specializing in immigration documented the surcharge's negative effects on skilled talent flows to the United States. **Professional associations** — from medicine to engineering to life sciences — denounced the concrete effects on their recruitment capacity. The **20 state attorneys general**, representing economies and political profiles as diverse as could be, found enough common ground to bring the litigation together.

This convergence is remarkable. The H-1B program sometimes divides economists on fine policy questions — salary levels, definition of eligible specialties, abuse risks. But on the question of the $100,000 surcharge, the consensus was almost universal: it was a measure with documented negative effects, no clearly established benefits for American workers, and seriously questionable legality. Judge Sorokin confirmed the legal doubt. The negative economic effects did not wait for his decision to manifest.

### Silicon Valley, startups, and the future of American innovation

Beyond hospitals and universities, it is the entire American **innovation ecosystem** that suffered from the uncertainty created by the surcharge. **Startups** — which often have limited resources and are precisely the companies most likely to create tomorrow's jobs and industries — could not absorb a $100,000 surcharge for every qualified foreign worker they wished to recruit. Some delayed their hiring plans. Others considered opening offices in Canada or Mexico to circumvent the constraint.

**American innovation** has rested for decades on a winning combination: world-class higher education institutions, a developed venture capital ecosystem, an entrepreneurial culture favorable to risk-taking — and an immigration policy that attracted the world's best talents. Eroding that last element through prohibitive surcharges and chronic legal instability is undermining the very foundations of **American competitive advantage** in the twenty-first-century economy. The Sorokin ruling temporarily blocked that erosion process. Temporarily.

*I look at this H-1B debate and I think of China, which is investing tens of billions in its universities, its **research laboratories**, its talent attraction programs. And I think of Washington, imposing a $100,000 surcharge to recruit a physician in a rural Ohio hospital. The competition between systems has not yet been won by the West. And decisions like this do not help.*

## What remains uncertain: the appeal and its consequences

### The First Circuit and the question of the stay

In the weeks and months following the Sorokin ruling, the **U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit** must rule on the government's appeal. The most pressing question is the **stay**: will the appeals court grant a temporary suspension of the Sorokin ruling while it reviews the appeal? If so, the $100,000 surcharge will be reactivated, creating a new period of uncertainty for employers. If not, the Sorokin ruling will remain in effect while the appeal is decided.

Arguments for and against the stay will be evaluated by standard criteria: the likelihood of success on appeal, the irreparable harm that would result from the absence of a stay, and the public interest. The government will argue that the surcharge represents a legitimate immigration policy tool and that its absence creates a damaging precedent. Opponents will argue that an unconstitutional surcharge should not be maintained during appeal and that documented economic damages to employers are real.

### What this ruling means for Trump's immigration policy

The Sorokin ruling is as significant for what it says about the limits of presidential powers in immigration as for its direct effects on the H-1B surcharge. By confirming that the president cannot levy a tax — even one disguised as an immigration surcharge — without congressional authorization, Sorokin laid a principle that could limit other administration immigration measures. The argument is general: if it is essentially a tax, the president lacks the authority to impose it unilaterally.

This logic could apply to other measures the administration envisions in the immigration domain. It is a reminder that even in a domain where the president holds extensive powers — foreign policy, border control — there are clear **constitutional limits**. These limits are not bureaucratic obstacles to governmental efficiency. They are the **fundamental guarantees of American democracy** against the concentration of power in the executive branch.

*There is something reassuring in this ruling, beyond the specific H-1B visa question. It is proof that the American judicial system still functions as a guardrail against the excesses of **executive power**. Not always, not perfectly — but in this case, the judge read the Constitution and told the truth. That is precisely what federal judges exist to do.*

## The impact on foreign workers themselves

### Individuals caught in a system of chronic uncertainty

Behind the statistics and legal arguments, there are real people: the **H-1B workers** themselves. **Engineers, physicians**, researchers, teachers who built their lives and careers in the United States, who contribute to the **American economy**, who pay taxes, who raise children who will become Americans. These people experienced the $100,000 surcharge as a direct threat to their status and their future — not because their employers had to pay the surcharge, but because it made their presence economically uncertain in the eyes of the companies employing them.

The chronic legal uncertainty — the surcharge is legal, then illegal, it may be reactivated — is particularly grueling for people who planned their lives around a **immigration status** whose stability is now uncertain. Workers who had plans for permanent residency, visa renewal, and professional travel find themselves in a state of permanent uncertainty. This human dimension is too often absent from immigration policy debates, which concentrate on money and legal arguments. It deserves to be named.

### The promise of America and the reality of 2026

America built a significant part of its economic and scientific greatness by attracting the world's best talents — from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa. This capacity for attraction rests on a promise: come here, build your life, contribute to society, and you will be welcome. The $100,000 surcharge sent a radically different message: even if you are qualified, even if your employer wants you, even if you have something to offer — entry will cost a fortune and your status will remain precarious.

The Sorokin ruling has, for now, restored part of that promise. But the uncertainty of the appeal, the possibility of a stay, the likelihood of Supreme Court review — all of this maintains the precarity. And the underlying question remains open: what America do we want to be in the global competition for talent? The one that attracts, or the one that repels? The **economic data** gives a very **clear answer**. The Trump administration's policy appears unwilling to hear it.

*I have met Iranian physicians, Indian engineers, Korean researchers who built their lives in the United States. They are not stealing American jobs. They are treating patients in hospitals that could not find American physicians. They are developing technologies that create American jobs. Their story is also America's story. And the $100,000, that is a slap in the face of that story.*

## The impact on universities and American scientific research

### Brain drain toward America's competitors

The **$100,000 surcharge** had particularly damaging effects on American scientific research institutions. **Research universities** in states like **Massachusetts**, **California**, and **Michigan** reported losing candidates to Canadian and Australian institutions that imposed no such financial obstacle. These candidates — doctoral students in chemistry, molecular biology, computer science — represent the long-term pipeline of **American innovation**. Losing them means losing not current jobs but **future scientific** breakthroughs.

Data on **patent filings** and **scientific publications** show that **foreign-born** workers represent a disproportionately high share of American innovation. In fields like **artificial intelligence**, semiconductors, and biotechnology — precisely the sectors where the rivalry with China is most intense — this contribution is even more pronounced. Discouraging these talents from going to the United States through a prohibitive surcharge is not economic protection. It is **unilateral disarmament** in the technological war against Beijing.

### The reaction of major research universities

Associations representing **major American research universities** — including the **Association of American Universities** — had publicly denounced the surcharge as a threat to the **scientific competitiveness** of the United States. These institutions documented concrete cases: laboratories unable to recruit specialized post-doctoral researchers, mathematics and science departments unable to attract qualified professors, federally funded research programs unable to find qualified American candidates in highly specialized fields.

These accounts were not speculation about future effects. They documented real and immediate effects, measurable in terms of vacant positions, slowed research programs, and federal grants underutilized for lack of qualified personnel. The surcharge had not protected a single American position. It had created **vacancies in positions no one else wanted to fill**.

*An artificial intelligence research laboratory at MIT or Stanford with a vacant chair is not a victory for American workers. It is a loss for all of America — and a gift for the laboratories of **Beijing and Shanghai** that recruit these talents with enthusiasm.*

## The H-1B program and health sectors in a recruitment crisis

### Rural hospitals that can no longer recruit physicians

One of the most concrete and humanly significant consequences of the **$100,000 surcharge** concerns hospitals in rural and semi-rural areas that use the H-1B program to recruit specialist physicians — cardiologists, anesthesiologists, surgeons — in regions that cannot attract enough American physicians. These hospitals, often already financially fragile, could not absorb a $100,000 surcharge per hire. For them, the measure was simply prohibitive.

Concretely, entire departments at regional hospitals were reduced or temporarily closed. Patients in rural communities were forced to travel increasingly long distances for specialized care. Surgeries were postponed. Wait times lengthened. These effects on **real patients**, in real communities, are documented but rarely mentioned in the public debate on H-1B policy — which focuses primarily on large coastal technology companies.

### Foreign physicians in American medicine

**Foreign-born physicians** represent approximately one **quarter** of all practicing physicians in the United States, according to data from the **American Medical Association**. In rural areas and underserved communities, that proportion is even higher — these physicians often accepting positions in regions that American physicians trained at major universities tend to avoid. Imposing a $100,000 surcharge on their recruitment creates an additional obstacle to healthcare access for America's most vulnerable populations.

This reality directly contradicts the administration's rhetoric that the surcharge protected American workers. There are no American physicians who would have taken these positions if foreign candidates had not been available. These positions would simply have remained vacant. And American patients — often rural Americans, often **Republican**s — would not have had access to the care they needed. The ideological immigration policy had very concrete victims within Trump's own electoral base.

*That is the most glaring irony of this policy: the rural Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 were among those most directly affected by the H-1B surcharge that prevented their hospitals from recruiting physicians. Identity politics had **real victims** within the very base that supported it.*

## The role of Congress: why legislation is preferable to executive orders

### What Congress could do — and is not doing

The Sorokin ruling clearly identified the structural problem of American immigration policy by executive order: the president does not have the authority to act unilaterally on questions that fall within the legislative branch's purview. The constitutionally correct solution for reforming the H-1B program — whether to strengthen it, restrict it, or modify it — would be an **act of Congress**, negotiated between both chambers, with public hearings, expert testimony, and a democratic vote. That process is slow. It is difficult. It requires compromise. But it produces stable and legitimate rules.

The U.S. Congress has not fundamentally reformed the legal immigration system in decades. Bipartisan attempts at comprehensive reform have regularly failed under divergent political pressures. In this legislative vacuum, successive administrations have used presidential executive orders to impose changes that Congress could not or would not legislate. This cycle — executive orders, litigation, invalidations, new executive orders — is fundamentally unstable. And it is employers, workers, and institutions that pay the price.

### Is legislative H-1B reform possible?

Members of both parties have periodically proposed H-1B program reforms — to better target genuinely specialized skill levels, to strengthen wage protections, to reduce processing delays. These proposals are not without common sense. But they have never found enough support to be adopted, partly because the debate on legal immigration is poisoned by the debate on undocumented immigration, and partly because each side prefers partisan policy to bipartisan legislative reform.

In the meantime, American immigration policy for skilled workers continues to evolve through executive orders, litigation, invalidations, and new executive orders. The Sorokin ruling is a temporary correction of a presidential excess. It is not a systemic reform. Only Congress can produce the **legislative stability** employers, workers, and institutions need to plan long-term. And until Congress acts, we are condemned to this cycle of instability.

*The real problem is not this judge, nor this administration. The real problem is a Congress that has abdicated its responsibility to legislate on legal immigration for twenty years. The Sorokin ruling is a patch on crumbling legislative infrastructure. Impressive legally. Structurally insufficient.*

## Conclusion: A judicial victory, not yet a political one

### What the Sorokin ruling changes — and what it does not

Judge **Leo Sorokin**'s ruling of June 8, 2026 is a clear victory for those defending American **economic competitiveness**, technological innovation, and the rights of skilled foreign workers. It returns the power to levy taxes to where the Constitution has always placed it: Congress. It demonstrates that even in immigration — a domain where the president holds extensive powers — constitutional limits exist and courts enforce them.

But it does not, by itself, change the general direction of the Trump administration's immigration policy. Other restrictive measures on skilled workers remain in place or are under consideration. The uncertainty created by years of court-contested policies has already had its effects on hirings that never happened, talents who chose other countries, innovation projects that were delayed. These effects do not disappear with the Sorokin ruling. They accumulate.

### What a sound immigration policy for the American economy should be

A sound immigration policy for skilled workers should be stable, predictable, grounded in real economic data, and built on legislative consensus — not on presidential executive orders contested in court. It should clearly distinguish between real abuses of the H-1B program (which exist and deserve a response) and the program's essential economic function for thousands of employers. It should treat skilled foreign workers not as threats but as the **contributors to the American economy** that they are.

That is not what we have had since September 2025. What we have had is an illegal surcharge that discouraged hiring in rural hospitals, research universities, and technology startups, that helped America's geopolitical competitors recruit talent America was repelling, and that was ultimately struck down by a federal court as unconstitutional. That balance sheet is a **complete failure**, on every level. The Sorokin ruling does not erase it. It confirms it.

*I end this column with one certainty: the next time an American leader wants to restrict the H-1B program, they will have to go to Congress, argue their case, and obtain a **law**. Not an executive order. Not a proclamation. A law. It is slower. It is harder. It is what democracy requires.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [SHRM — Federal Court Strikes Down $100K H-1B Fee — June 9, 2026](https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/federal-court-strikes-down-trump-h1b-fee)

- [Wall Street Journal — Judge Strikes Down Trump Administration's $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee — 2026](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/judge-strikes-down-trump-administrations-100-000-h-1b-visa-fee-f167da26)

- [CNBC — Trump H-1B visa fee: government appeals — June 11, 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/11/trump-h1b-visa-fee-appeal.html)

### Secondary sources

- [Ellis Law Group — Judge Strikes Down $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee — 2026](https://www.ellis.com/resources/judge-strikes-down-100000-h1b-visa-fee)

- [McBean Law — Weekly Immigration News June 12, 2026](https://mcbeanlaw.com/news/weekly-immigration-news-june-12-2026/)

- [The Straits Times — US judge blocks Trump's $100,000 fee for skilled visa applications — 2026](https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/us-judge-blocks-trumps-us100000-fee-for-skilled-visa-applications)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-un-juge-annule-la-redevance-trump-de-100-000-sur-les-visas-h-1b