WATCH: California co-leads suit over $100,000 H-1B visa fee

By Dave Mason
The Center Square

Democratic attorneys general from California and 18 other states sued the Trump administration Friday over its new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas.

President Donald Trump imposed the rule Sept. 19 for new petitions for the nonimmigrant visas, which allow U.S. employers to hire temporary, foreign workers in response to labor shortages among physicians, surgeons, researchers, educators, nurses and other vital workers.

The new fee will make it more difficult for health care centers, schools, universities and others to hire workers, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a news conference Friday morning in San Francisco. He said it will make current labor shortages worse.

Bonta and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell are co-leading the coalition of states in the suit, which is California’s 49th one this year against the Trump administration.

Bonta said the new fee violates the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment process.

The Center Square Friday reached out to the White House, which commented on the lawsuit.

“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,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told The Center Square in an email. “The Administration’s actions are lawful and are a necessary, initial, incremental step towards necessary reforms to the H-1B program.”

The Center Square also reached out to the U.S. departments of Homeland Security and Labor, but did not hear back before press time.

Bonta noted the visas allow employers such as schools, hospitals, universities and research institutions to hire highly skilled workers.

“California, like every other state, needs more teachers, more nurses, more doctors,” the California attorney general said. “There is a shortage of supply in those professions.”

Bonta’s office said employers filing H-1B petitions typically pay between $960 and $7,595 in regulatory and statutory fees.

Bonta said the $100,000 far exceeds processing costs and call the new fee an “unnecessary obstacle” to hiring the workers America needs.

“The consequences for California would be devastating,” Bonta said. “We’re already facing a nationwide teacher shortage. Last year 74% of U.S. school districts struggled to fill open positions, especially in areas such as special education, foreign language and STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] fields. Nearly 30,000 educators nationwide hold H-1B visas.

“And hundreds of colleges and universities rely on them to support instruction and support research,” he said.

“Public schools, many of which operate on very tight budgets, can’t absorb an extra $100,000 for hire,” Bonta said.

“The health care sector is equally at risk,” he said, noting rural communities would be especially hit by the loss of workers. He said patients would see “longer wait times, reduced access to care, growing health disparities.”

Bonta said Congress didn’t authorize Trump to impose the new $100,000 fee.

“No presidential administration can rewrite immigration law,” the attorney general said. “No president can destabilize our schools, our hospitals, our universities on a whim. And no president can ignore the co-equal branch of government, the Congress; the Constitution or ignore the law.”

Besides California, states filing the lawsuit are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

In other litigation news, Democratic attorneys general praised this week’s federal ruling that blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to close a Federal Emergency Management Agency program designed to protect communities from natural disasters before they strike.

Democrats won their suit to protect FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. Those filing the suit included attorneys general from Arizona and California.

“We’re winning case after case as we protect Arizonans from harm and rising prices that the Trump administration continues to illegally pursue,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a news release. “Arizonans will notice this victory the next time a wildfire or flood hits – thanks to the work of those in my office, our state will be prepared.”