A coalition of 19 states led by California, filed a lawsuit this Friday against Donald Trump’s government for the policy of charging $100,000 for each new H-1B visa requested by foreign employees to work in the United States.
The amount for this visa “constitutes a clear violation of the law because it imposes an exorbitant fee that exceeds the limits authorized by Congress and is contrary to the intention of Congress in establishing the H-1B program, circumvents the required regulatory procedures and exceeds the authority granted to the executive branch under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),” California Attorney General Rob Bonta alleged in a statement.
This amount of money that workers must assume to work in the US “creates unnecessary and illegal workloads for California public employers and other vital service providers, exacerbating labor shortages in key sectors,” the text added.
Last September, Trump announced the imposition of a $100,000 fee on the H-1B visa program, which allows employers to request the hiring of highly skilled foreign workers to temporarily fill positions in specialized occupations that require at least a bachelor’s degree.
Additional information:EU cancels 85,000 visas in 2025
The Republican president argued that this type of visa has been “deliberately exploited” to replace, rather than complement, American workers “with lower-paid and lower-skilled labor.”
The announcement of this exorbitant price has generated great concern among foreign workers and companies in the technology sector, which are the ones that use this type of permits the most in the US.
It is estimated, in fact, that more than 70% of the H-1B permits in force are in the hands of Indian citizens, whose Government and employers have raised the alarm as a result of the restrictions.
Bonta and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell lead the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin in filing the lawsuit.
With information from EFE
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