CRACKDOWN
ON SILICON VALLEY'S HORRIFIC H-1B VISA ABUSES AGAINST AMERICANS IS
WORKING, REPORT SHOWS
Stewart
Lawrence | Consultant and policy analyst
President
Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration south of the border is only the
most visible part of his strategy to protect American jobs from foreign
competition.
Less
well known is the president’s determination to keep high-skill
technology workers from flooding the country under the H-1B visa
program, displacing American engineers and computer programmers in the
process.
For
years, American companies have exploited the
H-1B visa program to import hundreds of thousands of technology workers
from countries like India and China.
Though
only 85,000 foreign workers are supposed to be allowed in annually under
H-1B, thanks to loopholes and special exemptions, the total number often
surpasses 250,000. Typically, these workers are paid
considerably less than
the prevailing market wage; they’re also allowed to transition to
permanent residency after their temporary contracts expire.
Abuses
of the H-1B program are the stuff of legend. In one highly-publicized
case,
workers at the Disney Corporation were fired after they were tasked with
training their lower-paid replacements.
In
April 2017, Trump issued an executive
order to
federal agencies to “Buy American and Hire American,” with the H-1B
program specifically in mind. At
the time, Trump’s critics, including Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, said
the executive order was “just
words” and
would not likely change much.
But
a report released
last month by the liberal National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP)
says Trump’s quiet crackdown on H-1B is having a significant impact.
How?
By forcing American companies to prove that native-born workers won’t be
hurt by the program.
NFAP
examined data obtained from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS), the federal agency that oversees the entry of foreign
residents. The
group found a threefold increase in the number of H-1B applicants that
were asked for additional evidence that the American workers would not
be hurt if foreign-born workers were granted visas for similar jobs.
For
example, in last quarter of 2017, 69% of H-1B applicants had received an
additional “request for evidence” from USCIS compared to just 23% in the
third quarter, the group found.
As a
result NFAP found that more and more companies are opting out of their
visa applications rather than risk being turned down. In the last
quarter of 2017, Trump’s tighter visa guidelines had slashed the number
of H-1B visa applications by more than 40%, according to the report.
Hardest
hit were companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft — which,
combined, account
for over a third of new H-1B visa applications.
NFAP
also found that Trump’s tougher guidelines had reduced the number of L-1
and O-1 visas that facilitate the transfer to the United States of
foreign-born workers employed by American firms overseas as well as
foreign-born workers demonstrating “exceptional” scientific talent.
While
no one country was singled out for attention, Indian technology workers,
who comprise the bulk of H-1B visa applications, were scrutinized the
most. While 61% of non-Indians faced additional requests for
evidence from USCIS, 72% of Indians did.
TAGS
: APPLE, H
B, H
B VISA PROGRAM, MICROSOFT