President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday halting a broad range of immigration visas. The proclamation significantly limits opportunities for immigrants coming to the United States to secure a green card.
It will temporarily suspend H-1B, H-2B, H-4, J-1, and L-1 visas, affecting everything from the tech industry to students and au pairs.
President Donald Trump and White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller. By Paul Marotta/Getty Images.
The proclamation will extend the 60-day freeze on work visas put in place back in April and is the latest in the White House’s series of crackdowns on legal immigration during the coronavirus pandemic. The move, which will affect hundreds of thousands of people who had planned to come to the US, is necessary, according to Senior White House Adviser Stephen Miller, because Americans face staggeringly high unemployment levels as a result of the pandemic.
The freeze will go into effect at 12:01 am ET on June 24 and will prevent foreigners from coming to the US through various type of visas, including H1B, which the tech industry and universities has come to rely on, as well as the H-4 visa for H-1B recipients’ spouses. It would also prevent work exchanges on J-1 visas, scholars and cultural exchanges; and temporary workers on nonagricultural industries.
The proclamation will not affect immigrants who are already in the US, existing visa holders, temporary workers in food production industries, and health care workers and researchers fighting Covid-19.
How Do H-1B Workers Impact U.S. Employment Rates?
Research shows that H-1B workers complement U.S. workers, fill employment gaps in many STEM occupations, and expand job opportunities for all. The United States faces challenges in meeting the growing needs of an expanding knowledge-based innovation economy.
“H-1B visa holders do not adversely affect US workers. On the contrary, the evidence points to the presence of H-1B visa holders being associated with lower unemployment rates and faster earnings growth among college graduates, including recent college graduates.” the report said.
Such a huge mistake. Immigrants boost entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth.
— Rob Seamans (@robseamans) June 22, 2020
A much better move would have been updating the H-1B program to address some of its weaknesses. https://t.co/QW5I5ndo5N
Suspending work visas for foreign graduates would be a terrible mistake for US economy
One of the thing people should know about the H-1B visa is that companies pay a scholarship and training fee of $1,500 for each initial H-1B petition (and extension). This fee has raised from approximately $5 billion since 1999. This money goes to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund scholarships for U.S. students; to supports program for K-12 students and teachers in science and to the Department of Labor (DOL) to provide training for U.S. workers.
In the 2019 fiscal year, almost 139,000 new H-1B petitions were approved; 77,000 L-1 visas were issued, as well as 66,000 H-2Bs, visas for unskilled workers. Congress estimates that adding more H-1B visa workers would add an estimated $456 billion to GDP and $113 billion to federal tax revenue over the next ten years.
Even past H-1B visas are still creating jobs in today’s economy. It is estimated that by 2020 H-1B visas granted between the years 2010 and 2013 will have created more than 700,000 jobs for American workers.
The H-1B program is a pipeline for foreign talent, thousand of law students depends on the program to extend their stay in the United States. The program has its flaws, but shutting it down won’t help job-seekers. More than ever, international firms and companies need talent to innovate and develop their practice to compete globally. Closing borders and rejecting foreign-talent would likely harm the U.S. economy but most importantly it would hurt the U.S. image.
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