President Donald Trump’s administration has announced plans Tuesday to sharply limit visas for skilled workers from overseas, on Tuesday. This move official said was a priority amid the job losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Department of Homeland Security and Department of Labor officials said new rules for what’s known as the H1-B program will put restrictions on who can obtain a work visa and will impose additional salary requirements on companies that sought to hire foreign workers.
Acting Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said about one-third of the people who have applied for H1-B visas in recent years would be denied under the new rules, which also will include limits on the number of speciality occupations available under the program.
A temporary suspension of the H-1B program was ordered by President Trump in June, until the end of the year. The new rules observe a broader effort by Trump’s administration. The main intention is to prevent both legal and illegal immigration, an issue important to Trump’s base even if it’s less prominent in his 2020 US Presidential campaign than it was in 2016.
A new requirement that employers will have to pay higher wages to foreign workers than before will come into effect in the coming days, reflecting on the need to help the job market recover from the coronavirus shutdown, said Deputy Secretary of Labor Patrick Pizzella.
Pizzella said, “With millions of Americans looking for work, as the economy continues its recovery, immediate action is needed to guard against the risk lower-cost foreign labour can pose to the well-being of US workers.”
The H-1B program was created under President George H.W. Bush helped companies to fill specialized jobs as the tech sector started expanding in the US and it was harder to find qualified workers. Many companies insist that they still need the program to fill critical positions. Critics who seek limits on legal immigration include labour advocates as well as people. But some supporters argue that H-1B holders satisfy critical employment needs and don’t necessarily take jobs from Americans, but rather help in expanding the economy and create more opportunity.
Increasing the required wages will especially hurt startups and smaller enterprises that may be unable to meet the increased requirements, said Cornell University Law School professor Steve Yale-Loehr, an expert in immigration law. “Companies may decide to offshore jobs overseas, hurting US workers,” said Yale-Loehr.
Cuccinelli and Pizzella defending the new immigration rules said that the earlier H1B program has been abused that allowed companies to displace American workers with less expensive employees from overseas.
“US workers are being ousted from good-paying, middle-class jobs and replaced with non-US workers,” Pizzella said. “It has also caused US wages in some instances to stagnate. That is wrong.”
The new rules put limits on “offsite” firms that bring in a volume of H-1B visa holders and then provide those workers under contract to other companies for a fee, a loophole that has been the subject of fraud and other abuse overtime.
Under the new regulations, there would be an increase in workplace inspections and additional oversight of the H-1B program, Cuccinelli said.
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About 85,000 H-1B visas can be issued by the United States, per year in sectors like technology, life sciences, health care and including others. They are typically issued for an initial period of three years and can be renewed. People from India and China make up the majority of the estimated 500,000 H-1B visa holders in the US.
Officials said the Department of Labor rules would take effect immediately after they are published in the federal register later this week while those that fall under the Department of Homeland Security would be adopted after a public comment period.