US Chamber of Commerce takes Trump administration to court on H-1B visa policy  

In a lawsuit filed at the District Court in the District of Columbia, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America is seeking an action to declare the Proclamation by Donald Trump on visa policy unlawful. In the 49-page lawsuit, the world's largest business advocacy group, consisting of 300,000 direct members and indirectly representing nearly 3 million companies and professionals, has named the Department of Homeland Security, the US State Department, Marco Rubio, and Kriste Neom as parties to the suit.  

Citing the earlier H-1B visa process having struck an intentional balance between the hiring needs of businesses and protections for American workers, USCC calls the proclamation toppling the earlier careful balancing. “It fundamentally alters the H-1B program by tacking on a plainly disproportional fee that expressly contradicts the more modest fees Congress has sought to impose, which are aimed explicitly at recovery of costs. And it replaces Congress’s determination of the optimal annual number of new noncitizen workers (85,000, plus additional cap-exempt workers) with an onerous fee that will cause a significant reduction in participation in the program and may leave many H-1B spots unclaimed,” reads para 99 of the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, USCC has also made out a case for how an estimated 730,000 H-1B visa holders currently working in specialised fields across the American economy are critical to the success and growth of American businesses.” Emphasising the acute shortage of skilled labour faced by American firms, particularly in manufacturing and certain STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, USCC  has cited that “A recent study demonstrated that, at the individual firm level, each H-1B lottery win resulted not just in increased noncitizen employment, but a corresponding increase in native-born employment at the lottery-winning firm as well”.  

Like the points made out in the other H-1B-related lawsuit filed in the district court of the Northern District of California by a bunch of organisations, the latest lawsuit also points out that though the President has authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act, that authority does not, and cannot, empower him to override existing statutory provisions and programs. It also holds that any implementation of the Proclamation by any agency of the United States will also violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).