A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a bid by Donald Trump’s administration to halt a judge’s order preventing it from imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
The Boston-based first US circuit court of appeals declined to put on hold a lower court judge’s 8 June ruling in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general, striking down the fee on the basis that it constituted an unlawful tax Congress never authorized.
The three-judge panel, composed only of appointees of Democratic presidents, said the Trump administration failed to show it was likely on appeal to succeed in showing it had not exceeded its authority by imposing the fee.
The US president issued a proclamation in September that raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas, which tech companies rely on heavily to bring in foreign workers.
The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years. Employers seeking a visa for a foreign worker before Trump’s move typically paid about $2,000 to $5,000 in fees depending on various factors.
Trump, in imposing the hefty new fee, said the H-1B program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor”.
The fee does not apply to visas granted to foreign citizens already in the US on student visas, who generally make up a large share of new H-1B recipients.
Few employers have paid Trump’s fee since it was instituted.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
