Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with attorneys general from 18 other states, has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over a new $100,000 fee imposed on H-1B visa petitions. The lawsuit argues that this policy is unlawful and places an excessive financial burden on employers, particularly in the public sector and government roles that rely on highly skilled foreign workers.
“Once again, Donald Trump has gone far beyond what the law actually allows,” said Attorney General Ellison. “Congress designed the H-1B visa program to allow businesses or governments to hire highly skilled workers, like doctors and nurses, from other nations to meet a particular labor shortage. Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee for H-1B visa petitions completely undermines the purpose of the law by actually making it harder to fill critical jobs during a labor shortage. If Donald Trump disagrees with a law passed by Congress, he must work to change that law. He cannot simply add unworkable provisions to the law by fiat. Today, I’m filing a lawsuit to challenge Donald Trump’s unlawful attempt to harm and render the H-1B program unworkable.”
The H-1B visa program enables U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations requiring at least a bachelor’s degree. Employers must certify through the Department of Labor that hiring these workers will not negatively impact U.S. wages or working conditions. Congress caps most private employer applications at 65,000 annually, with an additional exemption for 20,000 applicants holding advanced degrees.
President Trump announced the new $100,000 fee on September 19, 2025. The policy was implemented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and applies to all applications filed after September 21, 2025. The Secretary of Homeland Security is given wide discretion over which petitions are subject to this fee or may be exempted.
State officials argue that this substantial increase threatens education and healthcare services nationwide by making it more difficult for schools and hospitals—many of which are government or nonprofit organizations—to hire needed personnel under the H-1B program. For example, during the 2024-2025 school year, most U.S. school districts reported difficulties filling teaching positions in fields such as special education and foreign languages; educators are among the largest groups using H-1B visas.
Hospitals also depend on H-1B visas for staffing physicians and nurses—particularly in underserved areas—and nearly half of all medicine-related H-1B recipients last year were doctors or surgeons. Projections indicate that without access to international medical professionals through programs like H-1B visas, there could be a shortfall of up to 86,000 physicians in the United States by 2036.
The lawsuit claims that setting such a high fee exceeds DHS’s authority under congressional mandates since current statutory fees range from about $960 up to $7,595 per application—far below $100,000—and those fees are supposed to reflect only agency costs for processing petitions.
Joining Minnesota in this legal action are attorneys general from California (Rob Bonta), Massachusetts (Andrea Campbell), Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington State and Wisconsin.
