Judge voids H-1B fee Alaska schools said threatened rural hiring

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Monday vacated Trump administration agency actions requiring a $100,000 payment for new H-1B visa petitions, removing a fee Alaska lawmakers and school officials said threatened rural teacher hiring.

U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin entered judgment in State of California et al. v. Noem, Civil No. 25-13829-LTS, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The judgment declared unlawful and vacated Department of Homeland Security, State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services actions "insofar as they impose a $100,000 payment obligation on H-1B petitions."

Sorokin wrote in a 42-page order that "the Policy implementing the Proclamation is declared unlawful and is VACATED in its entirety." He said the administration's policy amounted to a tax, not a penalty, and that the president lacked power or delegated authority to impose a tax on H-1B petitions.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the decision came as Alaska schools were hiring for the next school year.

Murkowski wrote that the issue was not partisan in Alaska, citing the Legislature's passage of a resolution urging the federal government to waive the fee for educators. She said she would keep working to eliminate the fee permanently.

The Alaska Legislature passed House Joint Resolution 39 in May. The measure urged the federal government to waive the $100,000 H-1B visa fee for educators hired in Alaska. The bill history shows the amended resolution passed the House on March 20 and the Senate on May 13.

The resolution said many Alaska districts, especially in rural and remote communities, face persistent shortages of teachers in math, science and special education. It said the state employed close to 500 international educators working in schools on visas and warned districts could face "the difficult choice of paying millions of dollars for visa recipients or going without these needed teachers."

Murkowski introduced federal legislation in March to exempt public schools from the fee. In her announcement, she said the fee was imposed by President Donald Trump the prior year and would apply to each H-1B visa.

Dr. Lisa Parady, executive director of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, said in Murkowski's March announcement that 573 educators, about 8.5% of Alaska's teaching workforce, were serving on visas, and that more than half of Alaska school districts rely on visa teachers.

"In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly 80% of the teaching staff," Parady said. "School districts already invest $6,000 to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has made it financially impossible for many districts to continue hiring the teachers their students depend on."