A federal judge ruled June 8 that the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions is unlawful, vacating a policy that had led some hospitals to pause the petitions for foreign-trained physicians and other workers.
Here are six things to know:
1. Judge Leo Sorokin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the policy in its entirety, finding it violated the Administrative Procedure Act and imposed a tax that Congress never authorized. The court granted summary judgment to the states challenging the fee and denied the administration’s cross-motion, according to court documents reviewed by Becker’s.
2. California and 19 other states filed the lawsuit Dec. 12, alleging that the fee would deepen staffing shortages at hospitals and reduce residents’ access to care. H-1B visas are a key pipeline for foreign-trained physicians and other healthcare workers as the U.S. is projected to face a shortage of 86,000 physicians by 2036.
3. At the center of the ruling is the court’s finding that the $100,000 payment is a tax, and that only Congress holds the power to levy it. The court concluded that the immigration statutes the administration relied on do not delegate Congress’ taxing authority to the president.
4. The ruling singled out healthcare. The court found the policy “arbitrary and capricious” in part because the administration justified it by pointing to abuses in science, technology and IT, but never weighed its impact on healthcare and education. The court also faulted the administration for not considering an exemption for cap-exempt employers, a category that includes many nonprofit and university-affiliated institutions.
5. President Donald Trump’s administration in March filed a cross-motion for summary judgment on the lawsuit. A White House spokesperson indicated the administration plans to appeal the decision, according to a June 8 statement shared with Becker’s.
“President Trump has clear legal authority to restrict entry of any class of aliens he determines is not in America’s best interests, and that is exactly what he did,” the spokesperson said. “The H-1B program has been abused for decades, and President Trump finally took action to fix it. A federal judge in Washington already upheld a nearly identical order, and the Administration is confident this order will be reversed on appeal.”
6. The ruling vacates the policy that imposed the $100,000 obligation for new H-1B petitions, which applied to workers outside the U.S. Before the fee, H-1B petitions cost between roughly $960 and $7,595 in regulatory and statutory fees, according to the ruling.
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