Attorney General Bonta Sues Over Trump Administration’s Unlawful New $100K Fee for H-1B Visa

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today led a coalition of 19 attorneys general in announcing a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration over its unlawful policy imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions. H-1B visas allow U.S. employers to hire highly skilled foreign national workers in roles that require specialized skills, including as physicians, researchers, nurses, and other vital workers, to alleviate nationwide labor shortages. The new fee would create a costly barrier for employers, especially public sector and government employers, trying to fill these positions. In the lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition allege that the policy, which has been implemented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is a clear violation of the law because it imposes a massive fee outside of the bounds of what is authorized by Congress and contrary to Congress’s intent in establishing the H-1B program, bypasses required rulemaking procedures, and exceeds the authority granted to the executive branch under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). 

“As the world’s fourth largest economy, California knows that when skilled talent from around the world joins our workforce, it drives our state forward. 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,” said Attorney General Bonta. “The Trump Administration thinks it can raise costs on a whim, but the law says otherwise. We are going to court to defend California’s residents and their access to the world-class universities, schools, and hospitals that make Californians proud to call this state home.”  

The H-1B visa program allows employers to petition for high-skilled foreign workers to temporarily fill positions in specialty occupations that require at least a bachelor’s degree. In petitioning for an H-1B worker, the employer must submit an application, certified by the U.S. Department of Labor, that employment of the H-1B worker will not negatively affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers. Congress limits the number of H-1B visas available each year for most private employers, with the current cap set at 65,000, with an exemption of 20,000 for individuals with a master’s degree or higher. Since its inception, the H-1B visa program has been continually tailored by Congress to carry out its purpose of meeting employers’ labor needs, while protecting the interests of American workers to ensure that they are not wrongfully displaced. Congress has repeatedly enhanced enforcement, increased penalties, and legislated on fees for H-1B petitions to prevent misuse of the program. Congress has also adapted the program to ensure that it is especially beneficial to many government and non-profit organizations in fulfilling their public service missions, exempting them from the 65,000-person cap.

On September 19, 2025, President Trump issued a proclamation ordering an unprecedented $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa petitions, undermining the very purpose of the H-1B visa by making it harder to address severe labor shortages in critical fields such as education and healthcare and ultimately worsening the staffing crisis. As implemented by DHS through a series of written documents, the policy affects any application filed after September 21, 2025, and grants the Secretary of Homeland Security broad discretion to determine which petitions are subject to the fee or for an exemption, raising concerns that the enforcement could be applied selectively against employers disfavored by the Trump Administration.  

The $100,000 visa fee is devastating for all states, including California, and threatens the quality of education, healthcare, and other core services available to our residents. For example, the United States faces a nationwide teacher shortage and in the 2024-2025 school year, 74% of school districts in the U.S. reported having trouble filling open positions, particularly in special education, physical sciences, ESL or bilingual education, and foreign languages. Educators are the third-largest occupation for H-1B visa holders, with nearly 30,000 educators on the visas, and nearly a thousand colleges and universities employ hundreds of H-1B personnel to support their research and education missions. Because K-12 schools, colleges, and universities are generally government or non-profit entities, they are incapable of absorbing an additional $100,000 for each H-1B hire. 

Hospitals and other healthcare centers also rely on the H-1B visa program to hire physicians, surgeons and nurses, often times in low-income and working-class neighborhoods. Nearly 17,000 H-1B visas went to workers in medicine and health occupations in the 2024 fiscal year, and half of those were physicians and surgeons. Without foreign-trained physicians, the United States is projecting a shortfall of 86,000 physicians by 2036. There will not be enough doctors to care for older adults, many of whom suffer increased rates of chronic disease and have other complex medical needs. In California, access to specialists and primary care providers in rural areas is already extremely limited and is projected to worsen as physicians retire and these communities struggle to attract new doctors. As a result of the fee, these institutions will be forced to operate with inadequate staffing or divert funding away from other important programs to cover expenses. 

In today’s lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition allege that the Trump Administration’s H-1B visa fee violates the APA and the U.S. Constitution. Fees associated with H-1B visas have long been established by DHS following the APA’s notice-and-comment process pursuant to congressional authority, which limits fees to the amount necessary to sustain the agency’s work. Typically, an employer filing an initial H-1B petition would expect to pay between $960 to $7,595 in regulatory and statutory fees. The Trump Administration’s $100,000 fee far exceeds the actual cost of processing H-1B petitions. By imposing this fee, the Administration is exceeding the fee-setting authority granted by Congress, which requires that fees be set based on the agency’s costs, rather than arbitrarily. Additionally, the Trump Administration issued the fee without going through the notice-and-comment process required by the APA and without considering the full range of impacts — especially on the provision of the critical services by government and nonprofit entities.

Attorney General Bonta and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell are leading the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin in filing the lawsuit. 

A copy of the lawsuit will be made available online here.