Global Nurse Force v. Trump (H-1B Visas/Talent Ban)

On October 3, 2025, a coalition of labor unions, health care providers, schools, and religious organizations filed a lawsuit to stop one of President Trump’s anti-immigration power grabs: 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 – threw employers, workers, and federal agencies into chaos – and was subsequently extended for another year on September 18, 2026, by a second presidential proclamation. 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 U.S 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 (APA). 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 patients, schools that rely on international educators, 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. 

On December 18, 2025, the coalition filed a motion for preliminary injunction, asking the court to pause enforcement of the payment. Judge Gilliam granted that motion on September 30, 2026, blocking the government from taking any agency action to implement or enforce the $100,000 payment requirement—either as adopted by the original 2025 presidential proclamation, or as extended by the 2026 proclamation—until the government goes through a notice-and-comment procedure required by the APA. The judge also denied the government’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ case, ruling that the plaintiffs’ claims can move forward. 

Judge Gilliam’s order is now the second court order blocking enforcement of the $100,000 payment requirement for H-1B visas. Judge Sorokin held in California v. Mullin that the presidential proclamation imposed an unconstitutional tax and that the agency policies implementing the proclamation and its $100,000 payment requirement were deficient under the APA. In Global Nurse Force, Judge Gilliam did not address whether the proclamation imposed an unconstitutional tax, but likewise concluded that the agency policies implementing and enforcing the $100,000 payment requirement were arbitrary and capricious under the APA because the agencies failed to consider any alternative policies or the interests of third parties affected by the $100,000 payment requirement. He also held that the agencies failed to implement the $100,000 payment requirement through the notice-and-comment procedure that the APA requires.  

On September 30, Judge Gilliam blocked the government from enforcing the agency policies implementing the $100,000 payment for H-1B petitions, including policies implementing both the original Proclamation and the President’s September 18, 2026 extension of it for another year. 

The court granted our motion for emergency relief per our claims that the administration’s implementation of the payment violated proper procedure per the APA, and acknowledged the harms this has caused communities, including losing employees, delaying patient care, and filling critical teacher shortages.  

The court did not block the President’s Proclamation itself. However, the agencies cannot enforce the $100,000 payment through the policies the court set aside unless they first go through the public notice-and-comment process.  But in granting emergency relief did prevent the implementation of the $100,000 payment due to APA violations. This means that the payment is currently not in effect for H-1B petitions while litigation continues.  

The court declined to grant our motion to certify a class for now and stated that certification was not necessary because the order already applies broadly without the need for a class, and because the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has separately set aside the same policies.  

The court also denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case, so the case will move forward. 

We continue to monitor the situation and will provide updates here as they become available.