Vindication! In dollars and sense.
I blogged last year about a settlement in which the U.S. Department of Justice had alleged under the False Claims Act that a business owed the federal government a legal obligation to apply for a work visa with a higher filing fee rather than a visitor visa whose filing fee is lower.
I called hogwash on the allegation. See “DOJ faults employer for choosing a visa category with lower filing fees.”
On August 12, 2024 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with me, stating:
“In this case, because the statute requires an established legal obligation, it is not sufficient that defendants applied for the wrong visas or may face liability for violating applicable regulations. They had no ‘established duty’ to pay for visas for which they did not apply. 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(3). Indeed, the only specific, legal obligation defendants had at the time they applied for the B-2 visas was to pay the application fees for those visas.”
The Ninth Circuit’s decision also cites similar rulings in other federal circuits.