A federal judge has blocked the enforcement of the H-1B visa ban issued by US President Donald Trump in June this year. The judge said that the President exceeded his constitutional authority.
The order was issued on Thursday by District Judge Jeffrey White of Northern District of California.
The lawsuit against the Department of Commerce and Department of Homeland Security was filed by companies represented by National Association of Manufactureres, US Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation and TechNet.
The ruling places an immediate hold on a series of visa restrictions that prevent manufacturers from filling crucial, hard to fill jobs to support economic recovery, growth and innovation when most needed the National Association of Manufacturers said.
In June, Trump had issued an executive order that had put temporary bar on issuing of new H1-B and other foreign visas including H2-B, J and L visas, till the end of the year.
The President had argued that the United States need to save and protect jobs for its domestic work force at a time when millions of them lost their jobs due to coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile the US Senate passed a bill on October 1, to prevent a shutdown and fund the government till December 11. The Bill-HR 8377, enables its immigration agency to quickly process more visa categories, including employment authorisation documents and certain green card categories.
This move is likely to help the immigration agency, earn higher revenue and avoid furlough of its employees.
Currently, processing employment documents for H4 visa holders (spouses of H-1B visa holders) can take up to six months, during which time they cannot work in the United States. The ability to apply for premium processing would bring down the processing time to under 30 days. The exact fees would be determined by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and would be under $1,500. The new Bill also allows USCIS more flexibility in how it can use the income.
The Bill also allows for expanding premium processing to green cards under the EB-1C category, which applies to multinational executives. Several applicants from India are in the US on an L-1 visa and would benefit from this inclusion.
However premium processing fee amount for categories where it is already avalialble, like H-1B and L-1 visas, has been increased from $1,440 to up to $2,500. The fee charged for the normal processing of visas unchanged.
