Immigration Lawsuit Q1: H-1B Fee, Detention, and Visa Bans

Lawsuits challenging the second Trump administration’s immigration policies now number in the hundreds, covering visa bans, a $100,000 H-1B fee, mandatory detention without bond hearings, asylum restrictions at the southern border, birthright citizenship, student visa revocations, campus protest deportations, and enforcement raids on homes and sensitive locations. As of mid-2026, the Just Security litigation tracker counted 803 legal challenges to Trump executive actions across all policy areas, with immigration a major share. Plaintiffs had won 262 of the decided cases, the government had prevailed 126 times, and another 360 were pending.¹ Several of these fights are on a track toward the Supreme Court.

The $100,000 H-1B Fee

A presidential proclamation issued on September 19, 2025, imposed a $100,000 fee on every new H-1B visa petition starting September 21. The fee applied across every industry, from hospitals and universities to tech employers.² Three lawsuits followed, and two federal courts have now reached opposite conclusions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued on October 16, 2025, in the District of Columbia (No. 25-cv-3675), arguing only Congress can set visa fees and that the proclamation conflicts with the Immigration and Nationality Act.³ The Justice Department responded that the President’s authority under INA Sections 1182(f) and 1185(a) covered the fee as a restriction on entry, and that the decision was unreviewable.⁴ In December 2025, Judge Beryl Howell upheld the fee, finding the President had acted within his statutory authority.⁵ The Chamber appealed to the D.C. Circuit on December 29, 2025.

A coalition of 20 state attorneys general led by California and Massachusetts filed a parallel case on December 12, 2025, in the District of Massachusetts (No. 1:25-cv-13829). The states argued the fee is an unconstitutional tax requiring legislative approval and that it bypassed required notice-and-comment rulemaking.⁶ On June 8, 2026, Judge Sorokin granted summary judgment for the states, concluded the fee was a tax that only Congress could impose, and vacated it entirely.⁷ That ruling directly conflicts with the D.C. district court’s decision, making appellate and possibly Supreme Court review likely.

A third case, filed October 3, 2025, in the Northern District of California (No. 4:25-cv-08454) by Global Nurse Force along with labor unions, the American Association of University Professors, and religious groups, focused on the healthcare consequences, citing a projected shortfall of nearly 86,000 physicians over the next decade. The court denied the government’s effort to pause the case in February 2026, and it remained pending at mid-2026.⁸

Mandatory Detention Without Bond Hearings

In July 2025, ICE began reclassifying most undocumented immigrants already living in the United States as “applicants for admission,” a legal category that subjects them to mandatory detention without any opportunity to seek bond. That reversed roughly three decades of practice distinguishing people apprehended at the border from those residing in the interior.⁹

One federal judge described the response as an “onslaught of litigation.” By late November 2025, at least 225 federal judges in more than 700 individual cases had ruled the policy likely violated the law and due process. Those judges spanned at least 35 states and included 23 Trump appointees. Only eight judges nationwide had sided with the administration, six of them Trump appointees.⁹

In Maldonado Bautista v. Santacruz, Judge Sunshine S. Sykes of the Central District of California certified a nationwide class of affected detainees on November 25, 2025, and rejected the government’s reading of the statute.¹⁰ Similar class actions were certified in Massachusetts and Colorado. The administration has sought expedited rulings from the Fifth and Eighth Circuits while slowing proceedings elsewhere, a pattern observers read as positioning for Supreme Court review.⁹

The 75-Country Visa Ban and USCIS Benefit Freezes

On January 21, 2026, the State Department issued an internal directive indefinitely suspending immigrant visa processing for applicants from 75 countries, citing a “public charge” concern. The list spans Africa, the Caribbean, South and Central America, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, including Afghanistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, and Guatemala.¹¹

On February 2, 2026, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, African Communities Together, and eleven individual plaintiffs sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department in the Southern District of New York. The complaint in CLINIC v. Rubio (No. 1:26-cv-00858) alleges the blanket suspension bypassed notice-and-comment rulemaking, conflicts with the INA’s requirement of individualized visa adjudication, violates the separation of powers, and discriminates on the basis of nationality in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The individual plaintiffs include working professionals from Colombia and U.S. citizens trying to bring family members from Ghana, Ethiopia, Jamaica, and Guatemala.¹² Both sides have filed cross-motions for partial summary judgment, with the case active at mid-2026.

A parallel shutdown hit people already inside the United States. USCIS tied a set of internal policies to presidential travel-ban proclamations from June and December 2025, imposing an indefinite hold on asylum and withholding-of-removal applications, a freeze on adjustment of status, work permits, naturalization, and travel documents for nationals from 40 designated countries, a directive to re-review benefits approved on or after January 20, 2021, and instructions to treat nationality from a travel-ban country as a negative discretionary factor.¹³

The Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island and other plaintiffs challenged those policies in March 2026 in the District of Rhode Island. On June 5, 2026, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. vacated all four policies as contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious, rejecting the government’s argument that the freezes were shielded from judicial review as discretionary decisions.¹³ USCIS said it “strongly disagrees” but would follow the order while seeking review.¹⁴ The government appealed to the First Circuit on June 12, 2026.¹⁵

Asylum at the Southern Border

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Proclamation 10888, declaring the southern border an “invasion” and suspending the entry of undocumented crossers. Federal agencies then rolled out “Direct Repatriation” and modified “Expedited Removal” procedures that plaintiffs said circumvented the INA and cut off access to asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture protections.

The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services and co-plaintiffs filed RAICES v. Mullin (No. 1:25-cv-00306) on February 3, 2025, in the District of Columbia. On July 2, 2025, the district court vacated the proclamation’s implementing guidance under the APA and permanently enjoined the extra-statutory expulsion procedures. The D.C. Circuit entered a partial stay in August 2025, allowing asylum access to remain suspended during the appeal while barring the government from denying withholding and torture-convention screenings.¹⁶ On April 24, 2026, the D.C. Circuit affirmed, holding the INA does not authorize the executive to create extra-statutory removal procedures, suspend the right to apply for asylum, deny withholding, or curtail mandatory torture-convention procedures.¹⁷

Birthright Citizenship

Executive Order 14160, signed January 20, 2025, attempted to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to parents without permanent legal status. Three federal district courts quickly issued preliminary injunctions blocking the order nationwide, finding it conflicts with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.¹⁸

On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court decided Trump v. Casa, Inc., granting partial stays. The Court did not reach the constitutional merits. It held that universal injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts,” and sent the cases back with instructions to narrow the orders to the specific plaintiffs with standing. The opinion noted that during the first 100 days of the administration, district courts had issued roughly 25 universal injunctions.¹⁹ A related class action, Barbara v. Trump, was argued before the Supreme Court on April 1, 2026. The Court is expected to decide whether the executive order complies with the Fourteenth Amendment and the citizenship statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a).²⁰

Student Visas and Campus Protests

Starting in late March 2025, ICE terminated the legal status of at least 1,220 international students at more than 187 colleges and universities, often without notice. The revocations were triggered by matches in an FBI criminal database, but many affected students reported only minor infractions like traffic stops, and some had no infractions at all.²¹

In Doe v. Bondi, filed in the Northern District of Georgia, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on April 18, 2025, directing the government to reinstate the SEVIS records of 133 student plaintiffs.²² Judges in other states issued similar orders. On April 25, 2025, government attorneys told a federal court ICE would restore records and stop terminating status based solely on database matches while it developed a new framework.²¹ The Just Security tracker recorded more than 100 lawsuits and 50 restraining orders before the administration partially reversed course.¹

A separate case targeted what plaintiffs called “ideological deportation.” The American Association of University Professors, several campus chapters, and the Middle East Studies Association filed AAUP v. Rubio (No. 1:25-cv-10685) in the District of Massachusetts in March 2025, alleging the administration was arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty tied to pro-Palestinian protests in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments and the APA. On January 15, 2026, Judge William G. Young ruled for the plaintiffs, declaring the policy “void, illegal, set aside, and vacated” and ordering sanctions to protect certain noncitizen AAUP and MESA members from immigration retaliation. The government appealed to the First Circuit on February 9, 2026, and the district court denied a motion to stay the judgment in March 2026, keeping the ruling in effect during appeal.²³

Enforcement at Sensitive Locations

DHS for years maintained a policy that generally shielded schools, hospitals, and houses of worship from immigration enforcement. The administration rescinded it on January 20, 2025. A coalition led by the farmworker group Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers filed suit in April 2025 in federal court in Oregon (No. 6:25-cv-00699-AA), later captioned PCUN v. Mullin, arguing the rescission violates the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the APA.²⁴ An emergency hearing was held on April 22, 2026, with plaintiffs saying enforcement was discouraging students from attending school and people from seeking medical care, and the government arguing no law requires a sensitive-locations policy. The judge had not yet ruled at mid-2026.²⁵

A separate set of claims arose from a large-scale raid at a South Shore apartment building in Chicago after midnight on September 30, 2025. Part of what the government called “Operation Midway Blitz,” the operation involved roughly 300 federal agents, a Black Hawk helicopter, and unmarked vehicles. On May 12, 2026, eighteen residents, including two U.S. citizens, filed federal tort claims against DHS and other agencies. They allege agents broke down doors without warrants, held residents at gunpoint, struck or kicked people, and detained 37 residents, none of whom were ultimately charged with a crime.²⁶ The government had described the building as a “Tren de Aragua complex,” a reference to a Venezuelan gang, but residents and their attorneys dispute that and call the raid a “militarized publicity stunt.” Represented by MALDEF, the MacArthur Justice Center, and others, each claimant is seeking $5 million. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the government has six months to respond before suit can be filed.²⁷

DOJ Suing States and Cities

Not all of the litigation runs against the administration. On May 8, 2026, the Department of Justice sued New Mexico, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, Attorney General Raul Torrez, the City of Albuquerque, and Mayor Timothy Keller, alleging state and local policies were obstructing federal immigration enforcement. The case, United States v. State of New Mexico (No. 1:26-cv-01471), targets New Mexico’s Immigrant Safety Act (HB9), which bars public entities from contracting for federal immigration detention, and Albuquerque’s Safer Community Places Ordinance, which limits ICE enforcement at schools, hospitals, churches, and city-owned facilities and requires businesses to warn employees about immigration audits.²⁸ The DOJ argues both laws are preempted by federal immigration law, violate the Supremacy Clause, and are designed to “harbor and shield illegal aliens.” The Albuquerque ordinance passed on a 5-4 City Council vote in March 2026 and permits ICE to enter protected locations only with a judicial warrant or when there is an imminent threat of bodily harm.²⁹

Where This Is Heading

The Supreme Court’s June 2025 ruling restricting universal injunctions has reshaped the strategy on both sides. District courts can still block policies for the specific plaintiffs in front of them, but blanket nationwide orders face a much higher bar. That has pushed advocates toward class actions as the main vehicle for broad relief, visible in the detention, birthright citizenship, and H-1B fee cases alike. With Barbara v. Trump awaiting a decision, mandatory detention moving through multiple circuits, and the H-1B fee split between the D.C. and Massachusetts courts, several of these disputes are on a path to Supreme Court review in coming terms.¹

1
Just Security. Tracker: Litigation and Legal Challenges to the Trump Administration
2
NPR. U.S. Chamber of Commerce Sues Trump Administration Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fees
3
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Chamber of Commerce v. DHS
4
Forbes. DOJ Files Response to Immigration Lawsuit Against $100,000 H-1B Fee
5
Lawfare. Trump’s $100K H-1B Visa Fee May Be Here to Stay
6
California Office of the Attorney General. H-1B Complaint
7
CalChamber HR Watchdog. Federal Court Strikes Down $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
8
Justice Action Center. GNF v. Trump H-1B Visas
9
Politico. Trump Detention Deportation Policy
10
The Conversation. Trump Administration’s Immigrant Detention Policy Broadly Rejected by Federal Judges
11
Center for Constitutional Rights. Questions and Answers About 75-Country Visa Ban Lawsuit
12
National Immigration Law Center. CLINIC v. Rubio
13
Nixon Peabody. Rhode Island Federal Court Vacates USCIS Immigration Benefit Freeze Policies
14
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Court Order on Hold Policies
15
Fragomen. United States Federal District Court Vacates 40 Jurisdiction Adjudications Hold and Related Policies
16
Center for Gender and Refugee Studies. RAICES v. Mullin
17
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. RAICES v. Mullin, No. 25-5243
18
ACLU. Supreme Court Limits Nationwide Injunctions
19
Supreme Court of the United States. Trump v. Casa, Inc.
20
SCOTUSblog. Trump v. Barbara
21
CT Mirror. ICE Student Visa Reverse Course
22
ACLU of Georgia. Temporary Restraining Order Granted in Student Visa Revocation Case Doe v. Bondi
23
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. American Association of University Professors (AAUP) v. Rubio
24
Justice Action Center Litigation Tracker. PCUN v. Noem (Sensitive Locations)
25
KVAL News. Emergency Hearing Held for Lawsuit Seeking to Overturn Policy for Certain ICE Operations
26
ABC7 Chicago. Ex-Residents of South Shore Chicago Apartment Building Seek Millions in Damages
27
MALDEF. Eighteen Chicago Residents File Legal Claims
28
U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against State of New Mexico and City of Albuquerque
29
Albuquerque Journal. DOJ Sues New Mexico, Albuquerque Over Sanctuary Policies