District Court Vacates DHS Final Rule on Trump-era H1-B Visa Preference System

On September 15, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California vacated the DHS Final Rule, a preference system proposed by the Trump administration set to go into effect in January 2021 that would have given H1-B visa preference to immigrants with the highest wages, doing away with the lottery system that has been used to select petitions for adjudication when the number of applications filed in a given fiscal year exceeds the annual cap set by law. The Final Rule was put on hold by the Biden administration until December 31, 2021 after a legal challenge was filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. After a lawsuit was filed, the U.S. District Court in Northern California ultimately vacated the rule, finding that former acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolfe was not legally appointed to that position and therefore did not have the authority to issue the new rule.