A group of U.S. states is mounting a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s altered H1-B visa policy, which they say could sharply limit who is able to come to the country to work in specialized jobs.
The attorneys general of 20 states, including California and New York, sued the Trump administration on Friday over its decision to impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas. The states are asking a federal court to block the policy and declare it unlawful.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment via email outside of regular working hours.
Why It Matters
President Donald Trump signed a proclamation in September creating the new fee. The administration has said the move is intended to stop employers from misusing the visa program.
“The number of foreign STEM workers in the United States has more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, increasing from 1.2 million to almost 2.5 million, while overall STEM employment has only increased 44.5 percent during that time,” the administration said in a statement earlier this year,” the administration said in a statement earlier this year.
The H-1B visa program allows employers to bring in foreign workers with specialized skills when qualified U.S. workers cannot be found. The visas are commonly used in science and technology fields, but they also play a role in staffing hospitals, universities and research institutions.
The policy has divided Trump’s supporters. Immigration hard-liners have praised the higher fee, saying it could encourage employers to hire American workers instead of relying on foreign labor. Critics, however, argue that the cost makes the program inaccessible and could deepen existing shortages in fields where skilled workers are already hard to find.
What To Know
California and Massachusetts are leading the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The states argue that the steep new fee effectively shuts the door on many H-1B workers and could disrupt services that rely on them.
“Typically, an employer filing an initial H-1B petition would expect to pay between $960 to $7,595 in regulatory and statutory fees. The Trump Administration’s $100,000 fee far exceeds the actual cost of processing H-1B petitions,” a press release from California Attorney General Rob Bonta reads.
Under federal law, Congress limits the number of H-1B visas issued each year to 85,000, making the program highly competitive even before the fee increase. Employers must apply on behalf of workers for visas that typically last three years. The $100,000 charge adds a significant new barrier to an already restricted system.
The full list of states joining the lawsuit are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
This is not the first legal challenge to the fee increase.
The lawsuit is at least the third filed since Trump announced the policy in September, but it is the first brought by U.S. states. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued in October, and a separate case was later filed by a nurse-staffing agency and several unions.
What People Are Saying
California’s Attorney General Bonta said: “As the world’s fourth largest economy, California knows that when skilled talent from around the world joins our workforce, it drives our state forward. President Trump’s illegal $100,000 H-1B visa fee creates unnecessary—and illegal—financial burdens on California public employers and other providers of vital services, exacerbating labor shortages in key sectors.
“The Trump Administration thinks it can raise costs on a whim, but the law says otherwise. We are going to court to defend California’s residents and their access to the world-class universities, schools, and hospitals that make Californians proud to call this state home.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement, according to Politico: “President Trump promised to put American workers first, and his commonsense action on H-1B visas does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages, while providing certainty to employers who need to bring the best talent from overseas.”
What Happens Next
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the fee unlawful. The case is ongoing, and no resolution is expected for several months.
