Second US district court halts across the board visa fee hike

MUMBAI: In yet another lawsuit, filed by non-profit organisations, that provide a variety of immigration related services to low income US visa applicants, a US district court has issued a preliminary injunction and stayed implementation of the visa-fee hikes.
The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, led this lawsuit – seeking a permanent ban or a preliminary injunction. Judge Randolph D Moss, in his order stated that irreparable harm would be caused if the final rule is allowed to take effect. The order also states that Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acted without authority when he approved the visa-fee rule.
To illustrate, under the new rule, that was to come into effect from October 2, the basic application fee for an H-1B visa was set to rise by 21% to $ 555. Spouses of H-1B workers (holding an H-4 dependent visa) would have had to shell out $ 550 to obtain a work permit, this is a rise of 34%. Fees for applying for citizenship were proposed to rise sharply by 83% from $ 640 to $ 1,170. Even an unprecedented asylum application fee of $ 50 was introduced, these applicants would also have to pay $ 490 to obtain work permits.
In short, the order by judge Moss is similar to that issued recently by judge Jeffrey White, covered by TOI.