Yesterday, in Global Nurse Force v. Trump, the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued a decision blocking the Trump Administration's $100,000 fee on applications for H-1B visas (which are used by tech firms, research institutions, and other organizations to hire immigrant workers with various specialized skills). Federal district Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr. ruled that the imposition of the fee violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because, among other things, the administration failed to go through "notice and comment" rule-making as required by the Act.
This is actually the second district court ruling against the $100,000 fee. The first one, issued in June by a federal district court in Massachusetts, relied in part on different grounds. It held that the imposition of the fee is a usurpation of Congress's power to tax, and that the relevant federal statutes do not delegate that power. I agree with the earlier ruling, which I wrote about in detail here. The Massachusetts decision also held that imposition of the fee violates the APA.
