Trump Administration Drafts Executive Order to Reform H-1B, J-1, L-1, E-2 and B1 Visas

"President Donald Trump's next target in his administration's immigration policy will focus on what Silicon Valley fears most: the work-visa programs that tech companies rely on to hire tens of thousands of workers each year, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The executive order is still a draft, according to the report, but if enacted, it could mean major overhauls in the way tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon recruit their employees. Under the order, companies would have to prioritize hiring American workers, and if they must hire foreign workers, then they must prioritize the most highly compensated, according to the report.

"Our country's immigration policies should be designed and implemented to serve, first and foremost, the U.S. national interest," the draft says, according to a copy obtained by Bloomberg.

"Visa programs for foreign workers … should be administered in a manner that protects the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, and that prioritizes the protection of American workers — our forgotten working people — and the jobs they hold," the draft states.
Trump's order affects a number of visa programs including H-1B, L-1, E-2, and B1. H-1B visas are commonly used among tech companies to recruit high-skilled workers from overseas when they can't find domestic talent to fill positions."

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/trumps-next-execut…

 

Doesn't the UK have something similar? As in you need to present a very pressing need to hire someone foreign?

Not sure I really support this. People with a college education have single digit unemployment and make plenty of money. The unemployment amongst college grads is mainly from people with say liberal arts or niche degrees.

 
Best Response
<span class=keyword_link><a href=/company/trilantic-north-america>TNA</a></span>:

Doesn't the UK have something similar? As in you need to present a very pressing need to hire someone foreign?

Not sure I really support this. People with a college education have single digit unemployment and make plenty of money. The unemployment amongst college grads is mainly from people with say liberal arts or niche degrees.

You severely overestimated Trump's intelligence. He's an excellent marketer and manipulator, but he is an imbecile with regards to anything and everything else.

Trump is a hammer and he's looking for a nail; unfortunately, to an imbecile like him, everything looks like a nail.

 

Trump is far from an imbecile and other countries have something similar. This could have minimal impact to Visa workers since the US doesn't produce large numbers of native engineering and computer science graduates. That being said, I personally don't think college educated Americans need preference when competing with jobs. Non-college educated workers are an other thing.

 

UK has something similar, but its lip service.... you choose the overseas hire, make the offer (verbally), then you have to post on a few websites for 30 days (tailoring the posting to be super niche so it cant be filled by anyone but your candidate ... "Swedish speaking Moroccan required with fluency in Mandarin and no taller than 5'3", ideally with experience in experimental particle physics and fashion design"

 
moneypants3:

UK has something similar, but its lip service.... you choose the overseas hire, make the offer (verbally), then you have to post on a few websites for 30 days (tailoring the posting to be super niche so it cant be filled by anyone but your candidate ... "Swedish speaking Moroccan required with fluency in Mandarin and no taller than 5'3", ideally with experience in experimental particle physics and fashion design"

The U.S. federal government does this exact same thing with hiring. I was chuckling as I was reading your statement.

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I honestly think Trump will f**k up bad. Look, every country in the world is supporting educated immigration and we all know why, yet US is going to limit it. Well those people will find their jobs in other countries that will be very welcome to take them. Oh, and it also will raise SG&A costs for companies doing business in US.

You killed the Greece spread goes up, spread goes down, from Wall Street they all play like a freak, Goldman Sachs 'o beat.
 

Yes, but it's not supposed to make sense. It's suppose to please his electorate. And his electorate really believes limiting skilled immigration will magically recreate high-paying jobs or something like that. Hell, even if it doesn't at least "it will keep these damn foreigners away".

When you have people who seriously advocate that limiting student visas (student, mind you, not work visas) is good since "it means more places for American students" it's no surprise that immigration restrictions have appeal to certain people.

 
dornelbr:

Yes, but it's not supposed to make sense. It's suppose to please his electorate. And his electorate really believes limiting skilled immigration will magically recreate high-paying jobs or something like that. Hell, even if it doesn't at least "it will keep these damn foreigners away".

When you have people who seriously advocate that limiting student visas (student, mind you, not work visas) is good since "it means more places for American students" it's no surprise that immigration restrictions have appeal to certain people.

Limiting international students is especially idiotic, since they bring in so much revenue for universities relative to local students.

 

So much for a free job market

My hunch is that most tech companies aren't prioritizing Visa internationals just to save a few bucks, although that might be a secondary benefit. They have a business to run. And the issue is that there is a noticeable lack of good programmers and STEM background people in the US, as compared to places like India, China, probably Russia

That's not a problem you can fix with a hammer

 

Sure, let's hurt highly educated workers and taxpayers that desperately want to be Americans and contribute to our country's future, in order to help, in Trump's words, losers who can't compete on their own merit but happen to have been born here.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

I've been reading "Chaos Monkeys" by Antonio Martinez, and he asserts that the H1B Visa system is basically legalized slavery where the employer imports people, pays them way below market, and holds them hostage by threatening to fire them (and thus making them eligible for immediate deportation). No idea if this is true, but if so, some reform might be necessary.

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The Real Max:

Definitely not the case for west coast tech workers, but it could be the case is fields that are more saturated. Tech doesn't have nearly enough skilled workers right now and will pay through the fucking nose to get them, international or not.

Was there a specific industry that book was written about?

Tech. California. LOL. I don't know. Just thought it was interesting that he wrote about this topic. He was using the example from Adchemy where one of his co-workers and prospective startup business partner was being basically blackmailed by the company, saying that he if left they would report his situation to ICE and have him deported.

Array
 

This Quora explanation was sent to me the other day. Thought it was interesting.

Just a few hours ago a pretty good article came out explaining how Trump’s reform will affect H-1B visas. The nuts and bolts of it is that Trump’s administration is looking for ways to distribute H-1b visas not based on lottery system (like it is currently working) but based on “merit”. This entire sentence may sound like a mumbo jumbo, so let me step back and explain how the system currently works.

There are 85,000 H-1B visas issued to foreign professionals looking to work in the U.S. annually. When this program started (somewhere around 1990s) there were fewer people trying to get a job in America than there were available slots (hard to believe, right?). The application process was pretty straightforward. You apply for a job, get hired, your employer applies for your H-1B Visa sometime between April 1 and September and voila, you can now live and work in the U.S. for up to 6 years. Employers didn’t rush with applications and everyone who was petitioned for got their working visas. But a few years ago (somewhere around 2009 - 2011) things started to change drastically. Large recruitment companies who make money by employing and “selling” cheap labor to their clients started applying for more and more foreigners. Suddenly (and I remember that year very well), the volume of applications rose exponentially and demand for H-1b visas exceeded its supply.

The law states that all H-1B applications will be reviewed in the order they are received. Knowing this, companies started to send their petitions on April 1st when the application begins. Imagine that on April 1st hundreds of thousands of applications are sent for review. Which ones do you prioritize for 85,000 slots? The law further dictates that in such event there will be a “lottery” which randomly selects 85,000 applications and rejects the rest. Note: it’s actually a little more complicated than that with applications being divided into “general” and “advanced” but I can write about it under a different question. Are you still with me? We are back to the lottery.

I myself have gone through the lottery and got selected but in 2012 when my employer applied there were somewhere around 100K applications for 85K slots which isn’t that bad. In 2016 over 230K applications came in on April 1st. This means that only 4 out of 10 people were selected. The problem with this lottery was that it left the decision on who will have an opportunity to work in the U.S. to chance which is not exactly in the spirit of the purpose of this Visa. H-1B Visa program was created to attract the best and brightest talent to the country, not to pick people randomly.

Trump administration is looking to change this. The idea is that in the event when the number of applications exceeds the number of available slots, applications will be prioritized based on the applicant’s profile. Currently, two main criteria are being considered: whether an applicant has U.S. educational degree and what salary s/he is going to be paid. Trump’s administration is hoping that this will help keep the best and the brightest in the country and send everyone else home.

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The spirit of the change is encouraging - a lottery system for immigration makes absolutely no sense - but the devil appears to be in the details. For example, there are some unintended issues with a "US education degree" being a criterion. Let's hold salary equal, e.g. for an investment banking job. The Trump qualifications would carry the perverse incentive of favoring a foreign student at a mid-tier state school over graduates from Ivey in Canada, Oxford in the UK, Tokyo University... does it really make sense?

A better system to accomplish the same thing, off the top of my head, would be to increase the number of H-1B slots in step with the US employment rate: if US unemployment goes down, increase the number of slots, if unemployment increases as in a recession, decrease the number of slots. Therefore, the 85k slots should now be much higher, but in a recession, it would make sense to pare it down.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

I hear what you're saying but once foreigners know the rules the best and brightest will attend US universities. The market will adjust for the new rules over time. Also, just because you don't have a US degree doesn't mean you won't get a Visa--it just means you won't rank as high in the calculation. I don't see them filling 85,000 slots per year with foreign US university graduates. Regardless, it is a huge step up from a Visa lottery.

But I do like your idea about increasing and decreasing availability with the employment rate.

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