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‘Costly barrier for employers’: Why 20 states are suing Trump administration over $100,000 H-1B fee hike
This would at least be the third legal challenge to the Trump administration’s H-1B policy change.
Ever since Donald Trump took office for a second term as United States President in January this year, he has been engaged in legal tussles over his policies, particularly with democrat states.
A key immigration-related policy by his administration - the $100,000 H-1B fee hike, is set to be challenged in court by as many as nineteen states, including California, New York, Illinois, and others.
Why are California, 19 other states suing the Trump administration?
California and several other states are suing the Trump administration over its hiked $100,000 fee for any new applications for H-1B visas. The H-1B program allows American employers to hire foreigners as employees for “specialty occupations”, according to the US department of labor.
Announcing the legal challenge to Trump administration, California’s attorney general Rob Bonta wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that Trump’s “unlawful new $100,000 H1-B visa fee could cause staffing shortages for teachers, physicians, researchers, nurses and other vital workers, endangering CA’s ability to provide critical services.”
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According to a press release by Bonta’s office, the new fee could “create a costly barrier for employers, especially public sector and government employers, trying to fill these positions.”
The lawsuit is expected to be filed on Friday (local time) and will be filed in Massachusetts federal court, reported news agency Reuters.
This would at least be the third legal challenge to the Trump administration’s H-1B policy change. Earlier, the hiked fee was challenged by the US Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of unions, employers and religious groups.
Is the Trump administration’s H-1B fee hike illegal?
The press release by Bonta’s office says that in the lawsuit, him and other attorney generals allege that the policy, which has been implemented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “is a clear violation of the law because it imposes a massive fee outside of the bounds of what is authorized by Congress and contrary to Congress’s intent in establishing the H-1B program, bypasses required rulemaking procedures, and exceeds the authority granted to the executive branch under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).”
It also states typically, the fee of H-1B visas has been established by DHS following the APA’s notice-and-comment process pursuant to congressional authority, which limits fees to the amount necessary to sustain the agency’s work.
“Typically, an employer filing an initial H-1B petition would expect to pay between $960 to $7,595 in regulatory and statutory fees,” it says, adding that the new hiked fee far exceeds the actual cost of processing H-1B petitions.
While addressing a press conference on Friday, Bonta said, “No president can destabilize our schools, our hospitals and universities on a whim, and no president can ignore the co-equal branch of government, of Congress, ignore the Constitution or ignore the law.”
The blue states suing the move also allege that the hiked fee was issued without going through “the notice-and-comment process required by the APA and without considering the full range of impacts — especially on the provision of the critical services by government and nonprofit entities.”
Which states are filing the lawsuit?
Apart from California, other states that are suing the move include Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
California’s attorney general Rob Bonta and Massachusetts counterpart Joy Campbell are leading the attorneys general of all the other states in filing the lawsuit, according to Bonta’s office.
