Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: A federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 H-1B visa payment requirement contending that the central issue in the case was not immigration policy but whether the executive branch had imposed a tax without congressional approval.
In a 42-page ruling, US District Judge Leo Sorokin concluded that the administration’s H-1B policy amounted to an unauthorised tax and exceeded powers granted to the President under federal immigration law.
“The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” Sorokin wrote. “There are no statutory powers authorizing Defendants to implement a $100,000 tax on H-1B petitions.”
The Trump administration had argued that the fee was part of the President’s authority to impose restrictions on the entry of foreign nationals into the United States.
Sorokin rejected that argument, finding that immigration laws cited by the administration did not grant the executive branch the power to levy taxes.
“These considerations preclude reading INA 212(f) and 215(a) as delegating Congress’s exclusive power to tax,” he wrote.
The ruling repeatedly emphasised that while presidents possess broad authority over immigration matters, those powers have constitutional limits.
“While ‘the Executive has broad discretion over the admission and exclusion of aliens, . . . that discretion is not boundless,’” Sorokin wrote.
He added that such authority “may not transgress constitutional limitations” or “the statutory authority conferred by Congress.”
The judge also rejected the government’s argument that the $100,000 charge could be treated as an immigration restriction rather than a tax.
