Twenty blue state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Friday against the federal government challenging a new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas as unlawful and harmful to several industries including healthcare.
Specifically, the suit alleges the policy, implemented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) a few months back, exceeded Congress’ intent for the visa program as well as the executive branch’s authority and did not follow required rulemaking procedures. The attorneys general said it would cause “irreparable harm” to their states and asked the court to vacate the policy and enjoin the administration from pursuing it.
“The bottom line is, no presidential administration can rewrite immigration law,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is among the plaintiffs, said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “No president can destabilize our schools, our hospitals and universities on a whim, and no president can ignore the co-equal branch of government, of Congress, ignore the Constitution or ignore the law.”
The heightened fees for new H-1B visa petitions was formally unveiled in a Sept. 19 proclamation from the White House. Subsequent guidance documentation from the DHS applies it to any applications filed after Sept. 21.
Under the policy, the secretary of the DHS is permitted to waive the fee when such a waiver is “in the national interest.” The plaintiffs noted in their complaint that there has been no subsequent information on how such exceptions may be applied and, citing pressures brought by the administration against higher education, raised concerns that the waiver “could easily be used to reward behavior favoring the administration and to coerce compliance with the administration’s agenda.”
The plaintiffs, in the complaint (PDF) filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, wrote that the president’s proclamation on the policy largely focused on justifying its need within the tech sector, but glossed over how it could impact other areas of the workforce.
“To the knowledge of Plaintiff States, no representative of the administration has publicly addressed the role of H-1B visas in alleviating nationwide teacher and healthcare worker shortages and ensuring that residents of Plaintiff States—or any States—have access to basic human services.”
Roughly 10 pages of the complaint are specifically devoted to the detrimental impact plaintiffs say the fee policy will have on healthcare access in their states and nationally.
About 8,500 H-1B visas ultimately went to workers in medicine and health occupations during the 2024 fiscal year, they wrote, and threatening these would force hospitals “to reduce capacity in ICUs, emergency rooms, and surgical units. Wait times will increase and patient outcomes will worsen, especially in rural and inner-city communities which are already medically underserved.”
The lawsuit also cited physician and nurse workforce shortages projected through the next decade as well as a letter penned by the American Medical Association (AMA) to the DHS that warned of similar access shortages.
The lawsuit from the attorneys general joins others from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a separate coalition of healthcare organizations and unions, which were filed in October. Dozens of major healthcare associations have joined the AMA in calls for healthcare exemptions.
Alongside the fee increase, the DHS has also proposed changing the selection process for H-1B from a random lottery to a weighted selection process favoring higher wage levels. The American Hospital Association has warned such a change could adversely impact rural hospitals and, if the proposal comes to pass, said healthcare roles should be among the applicants given greater weight.