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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the Trump administration Thursday to block steep new fees in the H-1B visa program, its first legal action against the administration this term.
The chamber’s lawsuit alleges that Trump’s new $100,000 visa fees for the H-1B program, widely used by Silicon Valley, violates the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The business group called the fee “not only misguided policy” but also “plainly unlawful” and is requesting that the court block the fee and declare it exceeds the executive branch’s authority.
The chamber’s lawsuit is not the first against the new visa fee, but it’s significant because it marks the first by the chamber, one of the most powerful and largest business groups in Washington.
The group has remained notably quiet on other policies that have rattled the U.S. business community since Trump took office in January. The chamber did not file a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s tariffs, for example, which have distressed small and large businesses across the economy.
“The new $100,000 visa fee will make it cost-prohibitive for U.S. employers, especially start-ups and small and midsize businesses, to utilize the H-1B program, which was created by Congress expressly to ensure that American businesses of all sizes can access the global talent they need to grow their operations here in the U.S.,” Neil Bradley, executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber, said in a statement.
In a statement, Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, called the administration’s actions “lawful” and “a necessary, initial, incremental step towards necessary reforms to the H-1B program.”
“President Trump promised to put American workers first, and his commonsense action on H1-B visas does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages, while providing certainty to employers who need to bring the best talent from overseas,” Rogers said.
Upon announcing the new H-1 visa fee, the president also signed an executive order to allow wealthy foreigners to pay $1 million for a “gold card” for U.S. residency and companies to pay $2 million for a “corporate gold card” that would permit them to sponsor one or more employees.
The Trump administration said it arrived at the $100,000 fee for H-1B visas because it would deter companies from using the program to bring in entry-level employees and encourage employers to use the program strictly to recruit “the great engineers” and “impressively detailed executives,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said at the time.
Generally, employers rely on H-1B visas to hire foreign workers with specialized skills, usually in science and technology, when they cannot identify American workers to fill those jobs. Tech companies tend to be the largest beneficiaries of such visas, but employers in manufacturing, finance, education, retail and health care also use the program.
The White House’s announcement of the policy change in mid-September resulted in days of chaos and confusion for H-1B visa holders and companies nationwide that use the program to bring workers in from abroad. The administration later clarified that the changes do not apply to current visa holders.
Before the policy change, about 85,000 new H-1B visas were available each year, although Congress exempts universities from that cap. Last year, the government received about 425,000 H-1B visa petitions, and recipients were selected through a lottery.
H-1B visa application fees depended on employer size and status but rarely exceeded $5,000 in total, excluding lawyer’s expenses.
But even in Thursday’s lawsuit, the chamber’s leadership praised Trump’s other economic policies.
“President Trump has embarked on an ambitious agenda of securing permanent pro-growth tax reforms, unleashing American energy, and unraveling the overregulation that has stifled growth,” said Bradley, who is also the chamber’s chief policy officer, adding that “to support this growth, our economy will require more workers, not fewer.”
“The president has said he wants to educate, attract, and retain the world’s best and brightest in the U.S., and the Chamber shares that goal,” Bradley said.
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