https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5647485-democrat-attorneys-general-lawsuit-trump-h-1b-visa-fees/

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D) on Friday led a group of 18 Democratic states in filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over President Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa application fee.

Collectively, the attorneys general argued that the new price tag attached to foreign visas will pose a barrier to U.S. employers seeking to hire highly skilled foreign national workers to alleviate nationwide labor shortages.

“Oregon’s colleges, universities and research institutions rely on skilled international workers to keep labs running, courses on track and innovation moving forward,” Rayfield wrote wrote Friday in a press release.

“This enormous fee would make it nearly impossible for these institutions to hire the experts they need, and it goes far beyond what Congress ever intended. This threatens Oregon’s ability to compete, educate, and grow,” he added.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin have also signed onto the complaint.

“Typically, an employer filing an initial H-1B petition would expect to pay between $960 to $7,595 in regulatory and statutory fees,” the press release reads. “The Trump Administration’s $100,000 fee far exceeds the actual cost of processing H-1B petitions.”

“By imposing this fee, the Administration is exceeding the fee-setting authority granted by Congress, which requires that fees be set based on the agency’s costs, rather than arbitrarily,” the attorneys general added.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5810132&forum_id=2Firm#49508400)