Immigration

Rep. Mike Kennedy Has A Plan To Endrun Obama Judge Ruling And Protect American Workers

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Republican Utah Rep. Mike Kennedy has a plan to save President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas which was set back by an Obama-appointed judge’s recent ruling.

U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin struck down the fee Monday, holding that it amounted to a tax not authorized by Congress. The following day, Kennedy responded by proposing the PROTECT Act which seeks to codify at the congressional level the $100,000 fee which Trump established via a September 2025 proclamation.

In an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, the Utah Republican said that as a result of litigation in response to the fee, “the final determination was that we needed somebody in Congress to actually take care of this.”

Sorokin, who former President Barack Obama appointed to the federal bench, ruled that “the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is ⁠a tax, ​regardless of what the payment is ​called,” Reuters first reported. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, power to authorize and levy taxes.

Kennedy said that his legislation requires any H-1B applicant to pay the greater of “either prevailing rates or $100,000 at a base for that person coming into town.” He noted that it seeks to compel companies to prioritize hiring American-born workers before they turn to foreign nationals.

The H-1B visa program, first introduced in 1990, allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign nationals for “specialty occupations” that require college degrees such as engineering and medicine — as well as fashion modeling. The visas are explicitly nonimmigrant visas.

Employers “also need to make sure that they’re documenting that they’ve sought for American workers and they couldn’t find American workers to do this job, and as a result they need to bring in this person,” the congressman told the DCNF. “But anybody applying for an H-1B visa needs to be willing at least at a minimum pay $100,000, which is appropriate to make sure that our employers in the country are not gaming the system to the disadvantage of American workers.”

Kennedy called the $100,000 fee his bill seeks to codify a “good baseline,” but added he is open to increasing the amount over time.

“My dad is an immigrant. I’m a big fan of immigrants, but we need to make sure that immigrants are not taking advantage of the system — or employers aren’t taking advantage of the system — so that our American workforce is harmed,” Kennedy told the DCNF. “I want to make sure that the people that want to come to our country can do so in a legal fashion … that their employers are going to take this seriously. That these individuals won’t come here to take welfare benefits and be on the public dole to the detriment of the American taxpayer, but they’re going to come here and work.”

The lawmaker emphasized that H-1B visas are a “complicated area to work on, because there’s been a lot over decades of misuse of these systems.”

“I’ve talked on the campaign trail to an individual who was hired by a large American company, and he saw immigrant individuals brought in under the H-1B visa program that were being paid a half or less of what the salaries of these American workers,” Kennedy said. “And then they were laying off American workers. I know that that might be helpful for this big company’s bottom line, but that is not healthy policy for us in the United States of America.”

He also added that when addressing programs concerning foreign nationals entering the U.S., lawmakers also need to take “fraud, waste, and abuse” into serious consideration.

“It’s been very clear that some from other countries have been magnetized to come to this country for the hope that not only could they be … recipients of welfare, but they’re going to steal from the American taxpayer,” Kennedy told the DCNF.

“We’ve seen all too much of that in the form of hospices that weren’t delivering hospice service or daycare providers that weren’t even taking care of children in the ‘learing’ center,” he said referring to the now-shuttered Minneapolis childcare center brought to light by fellow Utahn Nick Shirley.

Kennedy told the DCNF that “there’s a chance that reformation can make” the H-1B “more functioning,” while stopping short of calling for the program’s abolition.

“I think we’ve got a lot of cleanup to do. My bill’s focused on an aspect of cleaning up,” he emphasized, referring to the country’s immigration system. “I’m afraid to say that people like [Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] has been turning a blind eye to some of the terrible things that have gone on in his state, in Minnesota. And it’s a reflection of when we set a standard of welfare as the American dream for a lot of these people. We do not want to bring those people into this country.”

He noted that the House GOP Conference is not ” not getting Democrat help” on rooting out fraud caused by migrants, referring to a bill proposed by Republican Illinois Rep. Mary Miller that passed the lower chamber the previous week that would have cracked down on fraudulent daycare businesses. Only four Democrats, all representing seats Trump won in 2024, voted for the bill.

“This is after not only have we found that there was fraud that has been proven, but these people are reapplying to open up daycares, he added. “I think all should be unified behind trying to get rid of this criminal behavior.”

Faith Miller and Arianna Hooker contributed to this report.