Lawsuit challenges expanded immigrant worker ban

A lawsuit is challenging President Trump’s ban against immigrant workers to protect American workers during a COVID-19 economic downturn (described on ImmigrationProf blog here), which was in April enacted against green card holders and then in June expanded to include temporary workers.

The plaintiffs representing 20 inviduals and businesses in a class action suit claim President Trump’s suspension of travel to the U.S. for H1-B high-skilled workers, L-visa intracompany transfers, and J-visa cultural exchange programs is an attempt to “unilaterally rewrite the federal immigration laws” and exceeds the scope of his statutory authority. The complaint first challenged the April 22 proclamation directed at green card holders, and it now challenges the entirety of Trump’s proclamation, including the June 22 expansion that includes temporary workers working in essential industries such as shipping and transportation, medical professionals in hospitals treating Covid-19 patients, and diversity visa lottery winners. A lawyer with Portland, Oregon-based Innovation Law Lab says in a Bloomberg News story that the proclamation is “contrary to our federal immigration laws’ longstanding core purposes of family reunification, protecting individuals in need of humanitarian relief, promoting diversity, and welcoming immigrants with skills that are useful to and will help grow the U.S. economy.”

The revamped complaint comes one week after high-skilled workers and their spouses sued to invalidate the June proclamation, which similarly bars them from returning to the U.S. due to the economic hardship caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In that lawsuit, 250 resident physicians said that consular officers have refused to review applications from doctors who will soon start their residencies  in California, Florida, Massachusetts, and New York, even though such essential workers are explicitly exempt from the June order.

MHC