Donald Trump’s proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas got its first legal hurdle as a coalition of unions, employers and religious groups filed a lawsuit challenging the fee in federal court in San Francisco. The lawsuit cited the case of an Indian woman named Phoenix Doe, who has been hit hard by the fee hike. According to the lawsuit, Phoenix Doe is a citizen of India residing in the Northern District of California. She is a postdoctoral researcher at a US university whose cap-exempt H-1B petition has been halted due to the $100,000 fee imposed by the Proclamation. Doe’s research focuses on identifying the genetic and epigenetic causes of vision loss due to aging, diseases such as diabetes, and rare inherited genetic abnormalities of unknown etiology, with the goal of finding new ways to diagnose and treat blinding conditions. The lawsuit said Doe’s laboratory relies on her as its first postdoctoral scholar to build and advance its research program, and her ongoing work requires a minimum of two more years. “Due to the value of her skills and research expertise in both computational biology as well as wet-lab bench research, her university employer approved her for H-1B sponsorship, and she expected the process to be completed by this December, allowing her to visit her home country for the first time in six years,” it said. “Instead, as a result of the Proclamation, her university has indefinitely paused moving forward with the processing of her application. She is suffering debilitating stress and anxiety due to the uncertainty of her position, which exacerbates the PTSD from which she suffers. Without relief, Plaintiff Phoenix will be forced to leave her postdoctoral position the United States within four months, causing serious professional and personal harm. Her departure will set back the crucial research she isconducting, disrupting the lab’s ongoing work and ability to secure future research funding, preventing her department from getting any future funding through her, and potentially delaying the availability of treatment for the conditions that are the focus of her research,” the lawsuit said. India contributes the maximum to US’ H-1B visa programs. The Donald Trump administration is aiming a major overhaul of the H-1B programs so that companies are forced to stop hiring from outside and rely on American graduates for entry-level jobs.
