The largest American business lobbying group filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging US President Donald Trump’s US$100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.

The lawsuit by the US Chamber of Commerce, which says it represents 300,000 businesses, is the group’s first against the Trump administration since the Republican president took office for a second term in January.

The chamber says in the lawsuit that Trump’s September proclamation imposing the fee on new H-1B visa applications was beyond his powers and would disrupt the complex visa system created by Congress.

The H-1B programme allows US employers to hire foreign workers in specialty fields, and technology companies in particular rely heavily on workers who receive H-1B visas. The programme offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years.

The fee would force businesses that rely on the H-1B programme to choose between dramatically increasing their labour costs or hiring fewer highly skilled workers, the chamber said.

“Many members of the US Chamber are bracing for the need to scale back or entirely walk away from the H-1B programme, to the detriment of their investors, customers, and their own existing employees,” the group said in the lawsuit filed in Washington federal court.