Education
Trump also targets tech-friendly work visa services in the most recent immigration restrictions
The Trump administration proposed on Tuesday new regulations to increase restrictions on guest worker visa programs, including the H-1B scheme favoured by tech industry firms.
The regulations tighten the eligibility of foreign employees, so employers must follow tighter requirements for the positions they recruit and how much they pay. This could make it more difficult for businesses to sponsor H-1B visas and recruit foreign workers as part of the annual lottery that awards 60,000 new slots per year, not including renewals for current visa holders. The new rules follow President Donald Trump 's June order to suspend a number of guest worker visa programs by the end of the year, with the White House citing domestic employment losses during the COVID-19 pandemic as a motivator.
Trump's administration says the aim is to ensure that businesses that rely on guest workers' visas can not use these services to substitute American workers with cheaper foreign labor. For too long, this initiative has been misused as a cheap labor initiative to replace American jobs in the process, reads a White House press release released late Tuesday. These important changes would enhance the efficiency of the H-1B program without changing the annual legislative H-1B visa limit.
In addition to limiting the pool of available roles that qualify for H-1B and forcing employers to pay visa holders at higher rates similar to US employees, the new regulations also limit the length of time that a worker may be put on a third-party work site from three years to one year.
This means that if a company does not recruit a foreign worker to work at its headquarters or at its primary place of operation, it will no longer be able to maintain those workers in the country for more than 12 months without renewal. (Two of the top five companies that received the most H-1B visas in 2019 are Indian IT and consulting firms that run offices in the US but are located overseas.)
Google, one of the biggest opponents of Trump's immigration restrictions and the top 10 H-1B visa sponsor, criticized the White House 's earlier restrictions in June as a pretext to punish immigrants. Immigrants not only fuelled technological breakthroughs and created new companies and jobs, but also enriched American life, Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said at the time. America's continued prosperity depends on businesses getting access to the best talent in the world. Especially now, we need this talent to help contribute to America's economic recovery.
