NYT: Trump may prohibit the issuance of work visas to foreign students and professionals

US President Donald Trump said he wants to stop immigration, while Americans are faced with a staggeringly high unemployment rate as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s plan includes a ban on temporary visas for qualified foreign workers and foreign students entering US colleges, writes Vox referring to New York Times.

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Over 85 immigrants annually receive H-000B visas for skilled workers, including more than 1 for each of the technology giants such as Google and Amazon. Demand for these visas is constantly exceeding supply.

But the New York Times reported that Trump is considering banning the issuance of new visas in certain categories of employment, including H-1B visas, as well as the termination of the optional practical training program (OPT), which allows foreigners receiving student visas to work in the USA for up to 3 years after graduation, depending on the field of study.

If Trump promotes this plan, it will create job-seeking problems for immigrants who rely on these programs and who, for the most part, have no other way to pursue a career in the United States. Many employers find it difficult to fill job opportunities that require special skills, especially in STEM areas where there is a well-documented labor shortage that helps stimulate economic growth and create jobs for those born in the country.

Republican lawmakers are pushing Trump to suspend the H-1B and OPT programs for a year or until the unemployment rate, which has reached almost 15%, returns to normal.

Programs have their drawbacks, but shutting them down probably won't help the vast majority of job seekers in America during the crisis. The complete cessation of programs will create uncertainty for employers who face a gap in the workforce, as well as for the Americans they hire. American universities, research institutes, and the business community that rely on these programs have lobbied for a Republican proposal to temporarily suspend programs, but it is not clear whether the White House will heed them.

Trump ordered the administration to publish an inter-ministerial report on these visas, which may help justify any actions planned by the president. However, Congressional aides are skeptical that the administration will push for the complete closure of the H-1B and OPT programs.

Experts say making changes to programs so that foreign workers do not crowd out Americans is preferable to ending them. Legislators on both sides have been pushing for such reforms in the H-1B program for more than 10 years, and Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley reintroduced legislation on May 22.

On the subject: Layoffs due to the crisis: what to do to immigrants who are in the USA on a work visa

Trump's Highly Qualified Immigration Position

After his 2016 campaign, Trump railed against the H-1B program, which he said was suppressing American wages and employment and rife with employer abuses, and warned of a “brain drain” in the form of foreign graduates.

“They'll go to Harvard, they'll go to Stanford, they'll go to Wharton, but as soon as they graduate, they'll be pushed out,” he said in 2016. “They want to stay in this country.” They want to stay here desperately, but they can't. We absolutely need to save the minds of this country."

Since taking office, Trump has championed the creation of a “merit-based immigration system” that would benefit the same types of immigrants currently benefiting from the H-1B and OPT programs—those with valuable skills that offer jobs , degrees and salaries are higher compared to those with family ties to the US. But he also signed a “Buy American and Hire American” executive order in April 2017 that increased oversight of H-1B applicants, led to a surge in denials, and considered the idea of ​​ending the OPT program.

This discrepancy may be explained by Trump's desire to simultaneously satisfy the anti-immigration and pro-business wings of the Republican Party, which are often on the opposite side of the debate over highly skilled immigration. At the start of the pandemic, Trump proposed stopping all work visas, but the New York Times said it ultimately decided to abandon the idea after pressure from business groups.

US needs highly qualified foreign talents

The H-1B and OPT programs are pipelines for foreign talent, especially in computer science, engineering, education, and medicine.

The H-1B visa application process costs about $ 10 per employee and is usually paid by the employer. But without these visas, many companies claim to have difficulty filling jobs requiring special skills or degrees. In this regard, the business community has lobbied Congress in recent years to expand the limits on issuing H-000B visas.

Graduate studies through the OPT program can become a stepping stone to H-1B for many foreign graduates of American universities, especially in the STEM fields. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in 2019 the government received a record 220 ORT requests. For foreign students who choose to enter American universities, the prospect of being able to work in the USA after graduation is a major problem. According to the National Science Foundation, most international ORT students prefer to remain in the United States and become members of the scientific workforce.

If it is not possible to work after graduation, foreign students may refuse to study in the USA, which can have devastating consequences for American universities. In recent years, the number of international students who tend to pay more Americans for tuition has been declining, but still generates $ 39 billion in revenue.

H-1B and OPT are vulnerable to abuse

While many businesses are facing labor shortages and paying their skilled foreign workers fair wages, some employers have used H-1B and OPT to fill job openings cheaply—sometimes at the expense of American workers.

The federal leadership says that the H-1B program should not "negatively affect Americans' wages and working conditions." It was difficult to answer the question of whether H-1B workers receive low wages and lower American wages, which caused controversy among researchers. But it’s obvious that employers were indeed able to use the H-1B program to drive out Americans.

Most employers do not need to prove that there are no qualified Americans available to fill the position before hiring an H-1B worker. It has allowed companies ranging from Disney to energy company Southern California Edison to coronavirus antibody test maker Abbott Labs to lay off American workers and replace them with lower-wage H-1B workers — in some cases even ordering American workers to train their successors.

Often, companies use outsourcing firms that recruit employees, mainly from India, on the H-1B to fill IT positions. The largest of these firms, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, constantly receive more H-1B visas than even the largest US technology companies.

These practices are absolutely legal. But they sparked a debate about whether the H-1B program works as intended: does it complement the US workforce or compete with it.

The OPT program is even less regulated: there is no minimum wage for a job seeker. This means that a foreign graduate can work full time, earning nothing or almost nothing. And in this case, employers are also not required to show that no qualified American was found for this position. At the same time, a 2019 study showed that international students participating in the OPT program do not reduce job opportunities for Americans. Quite the contrary: the more foreign students approved for OPT in STEM areas, the lower the unemployment rate among US workers in these areas.

On the subject: Hundreds of thousands of work visa holders may lose legal status in the USA

Both Republicans and Democrats took action

Grassley and Durbin reintroduced a bill on May 22 that would guarantee that companies must seek out qualified US candidates before hiring H-1B employees. The bill is sponsored by Senators Bernie Sanders and Richard Blumenthal. The first version of a similar bill was introduced in 2007.

The bill prohibits the replacement of American workers with H-1B visa recipients and prohibits companies from firing American workers within 180 days before and after hiring an H-1B worker.

It would also change the distribution of H-1B visas, excluding the lottery system by which visa recipients are currently selected and creating a “preference system” instead. Priority will be given to foreign graduates of US universities, persons with advanced degrees, high salaries and possessing valuable skills.

The bill may also require employers to demonstrate that they have made good faith efforts to find Americans to hire, and that none of them really approached, as long as the job was offered to the H-1B visa recipient. The same requirement must be faced by employers hiring students on ORT.

According to Grassley and Durbin, it will be much more difficult for outsourcing firms to dominate the H-1B program, and this will also free up visas for conscientious employers who have been excluded from the program.

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