Months after the new rule on H-1B visas, a US court has ruled against the recent changes introduced in the H-1B visa program, including raising minimum wage levels and tightening eligibility requirements.
The court said that the administration had not justified its choice to skip key procedural steps.
According to an Economic Times report, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White found that the unemployment crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic was not "good cause" for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S.
Meanwhile, the Department of Labor flouted the proper regulatory procedure when issuing the two policies, which aimed to crack down on H-1B specialty occupation visas.
Also, the salary requirements were effective immediately upon publication in October, the new eligibility criteria were to be effective from December, Times further reported.The recent current case has been filed by the US Chamber of Commerce and other industry associations.
However, the new rules had been implemented without the otherwise mandatory notice and comments period that are given after they are published.
Highlighting about the new rules, minimum wages for H-1B workers were set to rise by an average of 40 percent across job roles and locations, pricing them out of the market in several areas.
To which, the DHS had changed the definition of specialty occupation, employee-employer relationship and limiting the validity of an H-1B visa for one year, instead of three, for a worker placed at a third-party worksite.
The new rule policy also allows for increased workplace monitoring to improve compliance. Immigration experts had said then that the rules were unlikely to withstand scrutiny in court.
This is among the last immigration policy changes introduced by the Trump administration a month before the Presidential elections in November, ET reported.
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