A second federal judge blocked US President Donald Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, ruling on Sept. 30 that US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department failed to follow required rule-making procedures. US District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, California, granted a request from unions, employers and nonprofits to prevent implementation while their October lawsuit proceeds. A federal judge in Boston had temporarily blocked the fee in June in a separate case brought by 20 states, and a Boston-based appeals court declined in July to pause that ruling. Trump recently extended the fee for another year after it was originally set to expire on Sept. 21. The Department of Homeland Security moved in August to establish a permanent fee of about $103,000, which will likely face a separate legal challenge focused on different legal issues. The US Chamber of Commerce has also filed a third lawsuit and is appealing the rejection of its claims that Trump lacked authority to impose the fee. H-1B visas allow US employers to hire foreign workers in specialty fields, with 65,000 visas available annually and another 20,000 for advanced-degree workers for three to six years. The fee sharply increased costs from the usual range of about $2,000 to $5,000. Trump said employers had abused the program and replaced US workers with cheaper foreign labor; his administration has also ordered enhanced applicant vetting and proposed a selection process favoring higher-skilled and better-paid workers.