On October 3rd, 2025, a coalition of labor unions, health care providers, schools, and religious organizations filed a lawsuit to stop President Trump’s latest anti-immigration power grab: a sweeping executive action that slaps an unlawful new $100,000 price tag on every new H-1B application. The proclamation – issued on September 19, 2025, and made effective just 36 hours later – has already thrown employers, workers, and federal agencies into chaos. Plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward, Justice Action Center, South Asian American Justice Collaborative (SAAJCO), Kuck Baxter LLC, Joseph & Hall, P.C., and IMMpact Litigation.
The H-1B visa program was created by Congress to provide a critical path for the United States to attract highly skilled professionals from around the world to fill urgent needs in the economy and public services to strengthen American innovation. Under the program, U.S. employers can hire qualified foreign talent — such as doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, and researchers — after a rigorous review process.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, challenges the order as unconstitutional and unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act. Plaintiffs include Global Nurse Force; Global Village Academy Collaborative; Society of the Divine Word; the Fathers of St. Charles; Church on the Hill; International Union; United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW International); UAW Local 4811; American Association of University Professors (AAUP); Committee of Interns and Residents, SEIU (CIR), a citizen of the United Kingdom residing in the Appalachia region, and a citizen of India residing in the Northern District of California.
These plaintiffs represent medical residents, fellows, interns, and nurses serving rural and medically underserved communities, a school that relies on H-1B workers to serve their students, religious organizations that depend on the H-1B program to hire pastors and religious professionals that minister to underserved communities, major labor unions representing faculty and academic professionals and higher education members, and individual highly skilled workers whose careers and lives were upended overnight.
Press Releases:
News:
- 10/3/25 | New York Times | Groups File Suit Over Trump’s H1B 100,000 Fee
- 10/3/25 | Bloomberg Law | Trump Hit With First Lawsuit to Halt $100,000 H-1B Entry Fee (1)