If you think about the Trump administration the second term, one of the many topics that would come up is the number of lawsuits or the use of the legal system has dramatically increased. Generally, with government, there is a process and although it sometimes seems lengthy, in the end, people abide with the decision making. President Trump’s administration wanted to speed things up and uses executive decisions. This leads to anyone in opposition to using the courts to slow things down or turn back the clock.

In an article from Reuters, a federal judge stuck down a $100,000 fee President Trump imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, concluding that it constituted an unlawful tax Congress never authorized.

The lawsuit was launched by 20 Democratic state attorneys general (if the President was Democratic, you could change it to Republican state attorneys general).

The administration argued that the fee constituted a lawful monetary policy penalty that the President was authorized to impose under federal immigration law, which gave him the power to restrict the entry of certain foreign nationals when he deems it “detrimental to the interests of the US”.

The Judge said, the fee was not a penalty but a tax and the President lacked any authorization from Congress to issue. You can called the fee anything you wish, but it is a tax. Taxes need Congress’ approval.

The administration will appeal the decision.

The H1-B offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, approved for 3-6 years. Technology companies are very dependent on the visas.

Prior to President Trump raising the fee to $100,000 the fee was between $2,000 and $5,000. It should be noted if a person was hired on a student visa, there was no fee and the bulk of H1-B visa are in this category.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, every company has a legal department and often in the past it was important to have because companies get sued. For lawyers, process and policies are the important road to follow – what process or policies does the company have in place to ensure whatever happened was an exception not the rule. Then the lawyers follow the process or policies – did the person do what was expected? In recent years, as more people use the court system to settle disputes, the role of the lawyer has changed and become more integrated with the senior management. It is rare for a company not to be have been sued, although the best outcome is the person was doing something that followed the process and policies.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.