Second judge blocks Trump's $100,000 fee for new H-1B worker visas
A second federal judge on Wednesday blocked an unprecedented $100,000 fee that US President Donald Trump has imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers. US District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, California, ruled that US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department failed to follow necessary rule-making processes before implementing Trump's fee. Gilliam, appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, granted a request by a coalition of unions, employers and nonprofits to block the agencies from implementing Trump's fee pending the outcome of a lawsuit they filed in October. The fee was temporarily blocked in June by a federal judge in Boston, ruling in a separate case brought by 20 states. A Boston-based appeals court in July declined to pause that decision. The Department of Homeland Security in August moved to adopt a permanent fee of about $103,000 that, when finalized, will likely be challenged in court. But that will involve different legal issues than lawsuits over the fee set by Trump. These suits have focused on the president's power
