California and a coalition of other states are suing the Trump administration over a policy charging employers $100,000 for each new H-1B visa they request for foreign employees to work in the U.S. \u2014 calling it a threat not only to major industry but to public education and healthcare services.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the world\u2019s fourth largest economy, California knows that when skilled talent from around the world joins our workforce, it drives our state forward,\u201d said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who announced the litigation Friday.<\/p>\n
President Trump imposed the fee through a Sept. 19 proclamation<\/a>, in which he said the H-1B visa program \u2014 designed to provide U.S. employers with skilled workers in science, technology, engineering, math and other advanced fields \u2014 has been \u201cdeliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump said the program also created a \u201cnational security threat by discouraging Americans from pursuing careers in science and technology, risking American leadership in these fields.\u201d<\/p>\n Bonta said such claims are baseless, and that the imposition of such fees is unlawful because it runs counter to the intent of Congress in creating the program and exceeds the president\u2019s authority. He said Congress has included significant safeguards to prevent abuses, and that the new fee structure undermines the program\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s illegal $100,000 H-1B visa fee creates unnecessary \u2014 and illegal \u2014 financial burdens on California public employers and other providers of vital services, exacerbating labor shortages in key sectors,\u201d Bonta said in a statement. \u201cThe Trump Administration thinks it can raise costs on a whim, but the law says otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House could not immediately be reached for comment Friday morning. But the administration has defended the program previously, including in response to a separate lawsuit brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Assn. of American Universities.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, attorneys for the administration argued in that case that the president has \u201cextraordinarily broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens whenever he finds their admission \u2018detrimental to the interests of the United States,\u2019\u201d or to adopt \u201creasonable rules, regulations, and orders\u201d related to their entry.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed that this authority is \u2018sweeping,\u2019 subject only to the requirement that the President identify a class of aliens and articulate a facially legitimate reason for their exclusion,\u201d the administration\u2019s attorneys wrote.<\/p>\n They alleged that the H-1B program has been \u201cruthlessly and shamelessly exploited by bad actors,\u201d and wrote that the plaintiffs were asking the court \u201cto disregard the President\u2019s inherent authority to restrict the entry of aliens into the country and override his judgment,\u201d which they said it cannot legally do.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s announcement of the new fee alarmed many existing visa holders and badly rattled industries<\/a> that are heavily reliant on such visas, including tech companies trying to compete for the world\u2019s best talent in the global race to ramp up their AI capabilities.<\/p>\n Thousands of companies in California have applied for H-1B visas this year, and tens of thousands have been granted to them.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s adoption of the fees is seen as part of his much broader effort to restrict immigration into the U.S. in nearly all its forms. However, he is far from alone in criticizing the H-1B program as a problematic pipeline.<\/p>\n Critics of the program have for years documented examples of employers using it to replace American workers<\/a> with cheaper foreign workers, as Trump has suggested, and questioned whether the country truly has a shortage of certain types of workers \u2014 including tech workers<\/a>.<\/p>\n There have also been allegations of employers, who control the visas, abusing workers and using the threat of deportation to deter complaints \u2014 among the reasons some on the political left have also been critical of the program. <\/p>\n \u201cNot only is this program disastrous for American workers, it can be very harmful to guest workers as well, who are often locked into lower-paying jobs and can have their visas taken away from them by their corporate bosses if they complain about dangerous, unfair or illegal working conditions,\u201d Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a Fox News opinion column<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n In the Chamber of Commerce case, attorneys for the administration wrote that companies in the U.S. \u201chave at times laid off thousands of American workers while simultaneously hiring thousands of H-1B workers,\u201d sometimes even forcing the American workers \u201cto train their H-1B replacements\u201d before they leave.<\/p>\n They have done so, the attorneys wrote, even as unemployment among recent U.S. college graduates in STEM fields has increased. <\/p>\n \u201cEmploying H-1B workers in entry-level positions at discounted rates undercuts American worker wages and opportunities, and is antithetical to the purpose of the H-1B program, which is \u2018to fill jobs for which highly skilled and educated American workers are unavailable,\u2019\u201d the administration\u2019s attorneys wrote.<\/p>\n By contrast, the states\u2019 lawsuit stresses the shortfalls in the American workforce in key industries, and defends the program by citing its existing limits. The legal action notes that employers must certify to the government that their hiring of visa workers will not negatively affect American wages or working conditions. Congress also has set a cap on the number of visa holders that any individual employer may hire.<\/p>\n Bonta\u2019s office said the new fee structure is \u201cdevastating for all states, including California, and threatens the quality of education, healthcare, and other core services available to our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n His office said educators account for the third-largest occupation group in the program, with nearly 30,000 educators with H-1B visas helping thousands of institutions fill a national teacher shortage that saw nearly three-quarters of U.S. school districts report difficulty filling positions in the 2024-2025 school year.<\/p>\n Schools, universities and colleges \u2014 largely public or nonprofit \u2014 cannot afford to pay $100,000 per visa, Bonta\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n In addition, some 17,000 healthcare workers with H-1B visas \u2014 half of them physicians and surgeons \u2014 are helping to backfill a massive shortfall in trained medical staff in the U.S., including by working as doctors and nurses in low-income and rural neighborhoods, Bonta\u2019s office said. <\/p>\n Without such workers, there \u201cwill not be enough doctors to care for older adults, many of whom suffer increased rates of chronic disease and have other complex medical needs,\u201d Bonta\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn California, access to specialists and primary care providers in rural areas is already extremely limited and is projected to worsen as physicians retire and these communities struggle to attract new doctors,\u201d it said. \u201cAs a result of the fee, these institutions will be forced to operate with inadequate staffing or divert funding away from other important programs to cover expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n Bonta\u2019s office said that prior to the imposition of the new fee, employers could expect to pay between $960 and $7,595 in \u201cregulatory and statutory fees\u201d per H-1B visa, based on the actual cost to the government of processing the request and document, as intended by Congress.<\/p>\n The Trump administration, Bonta\u2019s office said, issued the new fee without going through legally required processes for collecting outside input first, and \u201cwithout considering the full range of impacts \u2014 especially on the provision of the critical services by government and nonprofit entities.\u201d<\/p>\n The arguments echo findings by a judge<\/a> in a separate case years ago, after Trump tried to restrict many such visas<\/a> in his first term. A judge in that case \u2014 brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Assn. of Manufacturers and others \u2014 found that Congress, not the president, had the authority to change the terms of the visas, and that the Trump administration had not evaluated the potential impacts of such a change before implementing it, as required by law.<\/p>\n