Obama-Appointed Judge Strikes Down Trump’s $100,000 Fee for Foreign H-1B Workers
A federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama has struck down President Donald Trump’s one-time $100,000 fee for importing foreign H-1B visa workers to take American white-collar jobs.
On Monday, Judge Leo Sorokin of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the Trump administration’s plans to impose a $100,000 fee on foreign H-1B hires, arguing that doing so is essentially a tax that Congress did not authorize.
“… the Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” Sorokin wrote:
Accordingly, the Court VACATES the Policy materials implementing the Proclamation’s $100,000 payment requirement. In addition to vacatur, Plaintiffs seek a “judicial declaration that the Policy is unlawful in violation of the APA and the Constitution.” Defendants’ only objection to this requested relief is that “declaratory judgment alone would not redress Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries because . . . that judgment would not affect the Proclamation nor would it enjoin any future action.” But this concern is not applicable here, where the Court has also ordered vacatur of the challenged agency action. Therefore, the Court issues declaratory judgment.
The H-1B visa program allows American companies to import hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, primarily from India, to take white-collar American jobs every year. Research has repeatedly found that the program is often used as a huge labor savings scheme for Fortune 500 corporations. (Read more from “Obama-Appointed Judge Strikes Down Trump’s $100,000 Fee for Foreign H-1B Workers” HERE)
