Second judge blocks Trump’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B worker visas

By Daniel Wiessner

Sept 30 (Reuters) – A second federal judge on Wednesday blocked an unprecedented $100,000 fee that US President Donald Trump has imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.

US District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, California, ruled that US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department failed to follow necessary rule-making processes before implementing Trump’s fee.

Gilliam, appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, granted a request by a coalition of unions, employers and nonprofits to block the agencies from implementing Trump’s fee pending the outcome of a lawsuit they filed in October.

The fee was temporarily blocked in June by a federal judge in Boston, ruling in a separate case brought by 20 states. A Boston-based appeals court in July declined to pause that decision.

The Department of Homeland Security in August moved to adopt a permanent fee of about $103,000 that, when finalized, will likely be challenged in court. But that will involve different legal issues than lawsuits over the fee set by Trump. These suits have focused on the president’s power to set such a fee unilaterally.

The $100,000 fee was originally set to expire September 21 but Trump, a Republican, recently extended it for another year.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democracy Forward, a left-leaning legal group that represents the plaintiffs, applauded the ruling in a statement. “Today’s decision … protects a system that was thrown into chaos overnight,” said Steve Bressler, a lawyer with the group.

The US Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobbying group, has filed a third lawsuit challenging the fee. The chamber is appealing a judge’s decision rejecting its claims that Trump had no authority to set the fee.

The H-1B program allows US employers to hire foreign workers with training in specialty fields. Technology companies in particular rely heavily on workers who receive H-1B visas.

The program offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years.

Trump’s order sharply raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas, which had typically come with about $2,000 to $5,000 in fees, depending on various factors.

In imposing the fee, Trump invoked the president’s power under federal immigration law to restrict the entry of certain foreign nationals that would be detrimental to US interests. He said businesses had abused the H-1B program and replaced American workers with cheaper foreign labor.

The Trump administration has also ordered enhanced vetting of H-1B applicants and proposed a new visa selection process that would favor higher-skilled and better-paid workers.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Nia Williams and William Mallard)