A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a bid by US President Donald Trump's administration to halt a judge's order preventing it from imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled ‌foreign workers.

The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put on hold a lower court judge's 8 June rulingin a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general, striking down the fee on the basis that it constituted an unlawful tax Congress never authorised.