LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- California and a coalition of 19 other states are suing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over its policy to hike fees on new H-1B visa petitions to 100,000 U.S. dollars, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Friday.
The Trump administration announced in September to impose the fee for H-1B visas, claiming that the nonimmigrant visa program "has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor."
In the lawsuit, Bonta and the coalition of Democratic states allege that the policy, which has been implemented by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is a clear violation of the law and would create a costly barrier for employers.
"As the world's fourth-largest economy, California knows that when skilled talent from around the world joins our workforce, it drives our state forward," Bonta said, calling the new fee an "unnecessary and illegal financial burdens" on public employers and other providers of vital services.
Bonta and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell are leading the attorneys general of Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, among other states, in filing the lawsuit, according to the news release.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading business group in the country, filed a legal challenge in October to block the Trump administration's plan to charge the fee for H-1B visas. ■