A second federal judge has blocked the $100,000 fee that President Donald Trump imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers. US District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, California, issued the ruling on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, ordering US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department to hold off on implementing the fee while a lawsuit proceeds.

Judge Gilliam, an Obama appointee, ruled that the two agencies failed to follow the necessary rule-making processes before putting Trump's fee into effect. He granted a request from a coalition of unions, employers and nonprofits to block the fee pending the outcome of their lawsuit, filed in October 2025.

What does the ruling change?

The order bars USCIS and the State Department from implementing the $100,000 charge while the case moves forward. It does not resolve the underlying legal question of whether the president can set such a fee unilaterally — the central issue in the litigation.

The fee had already been temporarily blocked once before. A federal judge in Boston halted it in June 2026 in a separate case brought by 20 states, and a Boston-based appeals court in July declined to pause that decision.

Who is affected?

The H-1B program lets US employers hire foreign workers trained in specialty fields, and technology companies rely heavily on it. The program's structure remains unchanged by the litigation:

• 65,000 visas available annually, plus 20,000 more for workers with advanced degrees
• Visas approved for three to six years
• Fees had typically run about $2,000 to $5,000 before Trump's order raised the cost to $100,000

Trump said businesses had abused the program and replaced American workers with cheaper foreign labor. In imposing the fee, he invoked presidential authority under federal immigration law to restrict the entry of foreign nationals deemed detrimental to US interests. The fee was originally set to expire September 21, but Trump recently extended it for another year. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What happens next?

The Department of Homeland Security moved in August 2026 to adopt a permanent fee of about $103,000 through formal rule-making. That version, once finalized, will likely face its own court challenge, though it raises different legal issues than the lawsuits targeting the president's unilateral fee.

A third lawsuit, filed by the US Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business lobbying group, is also ongoing. The chamber is appealing a judge's decision rejecting its claim that Trump lacked the authority to set the fee.

Democracy Forward, the legal group representing the California plaintiffs, welcomed Wednesday's ruling. "Today's decision … protects a system that was thrown into chaos overnight," Steve Bressler, a lawyer with the group, said in a statement.

Beyond the fee fight, the Trump administration has ordered enhanced vetting of H-1B applicants and proposed a new visa selection process that would favor higher-skilled and better-paid workers. Employers and applicants should track announcements from USCIS and the federal courts for the status of the fee and the litigation.