The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the Trump administration on Thursday over a new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa petitions, a move that challenges prevailing wisdom among lobbyists looking to maintain good relations with the president.
The Chamber is by far the biggest trade association to take on President Donald Trump’s policies during his second term that it said will harm U.S. businesses and employers.
The lawsuit, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, follows a separate challenge to the fee that a health care staffing business and labor unions filed in a federal court earlier this month. The H-1B visa allows U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers to “specialty occupations” that aren’t easily filled by American citizens alone.
The lawsuit called the $100,000 fee “misguided” and “plainly unlawful,” and argued it “blatantly contravenes the fees Congress has set for the H-1B program and countermands Congress’s judgment that the program should provide a pathway for up to 85,000 people annually to contribute their talents to the United States for the betterment of American society.”
The White House promised to fight.
“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,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. “The administration’s actions are lawful and are a necessary, initial, incremental step towards necessary reforms to the H-1B program.”
When Trump announced the fee hike in September, it sparked confusion and panic among immigrant workers who were outside the U.S. when the news broke. It also spooked their employers, who urged staff to avoid overseas travel and return as quickly as possible.
The administration later clarified that the fee was a one-time cost for new petitions. This largely failed to assuage critics, particularly in the tech and finance industries, which stand to be hardest hit.
Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, called the fee “cost-prohibitive” for employers in a statement.
Bradley also praised Trump for “securing our nation’s border” and noted the Chamber and its members have supported the president’s “ambitious agenda of securing permanent pro-growth tax reforms, unleashing American energy, and unraveling the overregulation that has stifled growth.”
“With the border secure, we now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accomplish targeted legal immigration reforms, and we stand ready to work with Congress and the administration to make that happen. That includes working together on common-sense reforms to improve the visa process for skilled workers,” Bradley added.
The overtures are unlikely to endear the Chamber to Trump who butted heads with the business lobbying giant over tariffs and immigration during his first term. The Chamber and other business groups sued the Trump administration to block the suspension of new nonimmigrant visas in 2020 — and won.
But the Chamber’s influence among Republicans, once their steadfast allies, has waned significantly. And the legal challenge could threaten any goodwill that the Chamber has rebuilt with the president and his party.
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This article has been updated to include a comment from the White House.