The US district court judge Jeffrey White has granted a preliminary injunction and has stopped the proposed fee hike for a variety of visa applications including the H-1B.
In what comes as a big relief for the majority of the Indians, US district court judge Jeffrey White has issued a preliminary injunction and stayed the fee hike on H-1B and other visas. The revised fee was to come into force from October 2, Friday.
The new rules were framed from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The department of homeland security (DHS) that governs the immigration agency had earlier proposed an average fee hike of 20 percent across various categories which went as high as 75 percent in the case of intra-company transfer visas.
The basic application fee hike for H1-B visa was expected to reach 21 percent from $460 to $555 and the fess for the L-1 visas was expected to go up by 75 percent from $460 to $805.
Spouses of the H1-B workers holding an H-4 dependent visas would have had to pay $550 to obtain the work permit and this would mean an increase of 34 percent.
Moreover, the United States was ready to join the list of a few countries in the world which would charge an individual $50 for applying for asylum and these applicants would have to pay $490 to get their work permits.
A case was filed by the immigrant legal resource center in August and also by 8 other organizations against Chad F Wolf who is an acting secretary against the visa fee hikes.
These visa fee hikes were all set to be implemented under a final rule approved by the DHS.
Most importantly, these proposed visa fee hikes were challenged on the grounds that they were issued by the officials who are not even properly appointed by the authorities in their positions and therefore, people claim that these visa fee hikes are not legal.
The US court has actually found two reasons to halt the visa fee hikes. The first was, as said before, the illegal appointed of the officials by the authorities in their respective positions and the second was the inability of the government to explain the need for the increases in the fee for the visas.
Despite the government’s efforts to localize the impact of the ruling by the court, the court of the US has finally imposed a nationwide stay on the hike.
