Judge Rules That Trump Administration Can Add $100,000 Fee to H-1B Visa

A federal judge upheld the Trump administration's authority to charge $100,000 to new H-1B Visa Applications.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., said President Donald Trump's Sept. 19 opinion raising visa fees “is based on a plain reading of congressional statutes that give the President broad authority to regulate entry into the United States for both immigrants and nonimmigrants.”

“Here, Congress has decided to delegate broad powers to the President to restrict the entry of noncitizens.”[w]if the President finds that such entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States,” Howell wrote.

“To be clear, this decision in favor of defendants does not negate or invalidate the past and current contributions of H-1B workers to the American economy that plaintiffs highlight,” Howell added. “The impact of the H-1B program on the American economy or national security, whether positive or negative, is simply not at issue in this case.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Association of American Universities, which challenged the policy in court, can appeal the decision.

In the initial filing asking the court for an immediate injunction against the visa fee increase, the plaintiffs argued that presidential authority does not extend far enough to allow the president to “rewrite the visa program by imposing an unprecedented fee on domestic employers and imposing a denial of entry only when those domestic employers are unable or unwilling to pay.”

Trump's presidential declaration in September, intended to prevent systemic “abuses” and encourage companies to train American workers, sent large technology companies scrambling, trying to decipher the new rules.

The Trump administration later clarified that the fee increase only applies to new visas.

H-1B visas steel bastion of the technology industry, providing companies with the opportunity to hire highly qualified workers.