A federal judge in Oakland, California, blocked President Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas on Wednesday, marking the second time a court has stopped the policy from taking effect.
US District Judge Haywood Gilliam, an Obama appointee, ruled that US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department never followed required rule-making procedures before putting the fee in place. He sided with a coalition of unions, employers and nonprofits that sued in October, granting their request to block enforcement while the lawsuit proceeds.
This is not the first setback for the policy. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the fee in June in a separate case brought by 20 states. A Boston-based appeals court declined in July to pause that ruling.
The Department of Homeland Security tried a different route in August, moving to adopt a permanent fee of about $103,000. That version of the fee will likely face its own court challenge once finalized, though on different legal grounds. The current lawsuits center on whether the president has the authority to impose such a fee unilaterally, without going through normal rule-making.
The fee was originally set to expire September 21, but Trump extended it for another year before that deadline hit.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Legal Groups and Business Lobby Weigh In
Democracy Forward, a left-leaning legal group representing the plaintiffs in the Oakland case, praised the ruling.
“Today’s decision … protects a system that was thrown into chaos overnight,” said Steve Bressler, a lawyer with Democracy Forward.
The US Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, has filed its own lawsuit against the fee and is appealing after a judge rejected its claim that Trump lacked authority to impose it.
What the H-1B Program Actually Costs
Before Trump’s order, H-1B fees typically ran between $2,000 and $5,000 depending on the circumstances. The program allows US employers to hire foreign workers with specialized training, and tech companies in particular depend on it heavily. It offers 65,000 visas a year, plus another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees, approved for terms of three to six years.
Trump imposed the $100,000 fee by invoking the president’s power under federal immigration law to restrict entry of foreign nationals deemed detrimental to US interests. He has argued that businesses abused the H-1B program to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. His administration has also ordered tighter vetting of H-1B applicants and proposed a new selection process favoring higher-skilled, higher-paid workers.
