President Donald Trump’s proclamation creating a $100,000 fee for the hiring of foreign workers through the H-1B visa program came after years of congressional inaction on the immigration system, and is a move some experts say exceeds his authority to act without Congress and will likely be challenged in court.
The president’s proclamation said the H-1B program was created to bring temporary workers to the U.S. for high-skilled functions, “but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
That echoes the concerns of Sens. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., who for years put forward bipartisan bills that would, among other changes, place new wage, recruitment, and attestation requirements on employers seeking to hire with those visas.
