Overview
- A federal judge in Oakland granted a coalition's request to block the $100,000 charge on certain new H-1B entrants, with the order issued Wednesday while the coalition's lawsuit proceeds.
- This is the second federal court decision to halt the fee after a Boston judge temporarily blocked it in June and an appeals court kept that injunction in place.
- Judge Haywood Gilliam concluded that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department did not use the notice-and-comment rulemaking process required by the Administrative Procedure Act when implementing the fee.
- Separately, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed a permanent fee of about $103,000 through formal rulemaking, a different legal track that is likely to prompt new challenges.
- The rulings leave employers and H-1B applicants in limbo: few employers have paid the charge so far, technology firms face uncertainty hiring specialized foreign workers, and the litigation and DHS rulemaking will determine the policy's future cost and scope.