Trump to seek changes in visa program to encourage hiring Americans

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that aims to place new restrictions on foreign worker visas and limit the materials that public agencies can buy from foreign manufacturers, according to USA Today.

The “Hire American” part of the order aims to crack down on what the administration calls “abuses” of government guest-worker programs.

The order he will sign on Tuesday will call for “the strict enforcement of all laws governing entry into the United States of labor from overseas for the stated objective of creating higher wages and higher employment rates for workers in the United States”, one of the senior officials said. Instead, the president said, the H-1B program, in which demand regularly outstrips the limited supply of visas, should be limited to “only the most skilled and highest-paid applicants“.

Critics of the programme say most H-1B visas are awarded for lower-paid jobs at outsourcing firms, many based in India. “Highly-skilled immigrants create new American jobs, raise wages for native-born workers, and contribute enormously to growing our economy”.

The order targets the H1-B visa program, which allows companies to employ graduate level workers in specialty occupations like IT, engineering, mathematics and science.

Earlier, on Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also announced a tighter visa policy for the businesses to bring workers in the country.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate employers misusing the H-1B visa process to discriminate against United States workers”, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Tom Wheeler of the Civil Rights Division. “We already know H-1B visa abuse hurts American workers”.

“We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that more products are stamped, with those wonderful words, made in the USA”, Trump told a crowd of technical students and manufacturing employees at the headquarters of Snap-On Tools in Kenosha.

Employers including Walt Disney World and the University of California in San Francisco have replaced American technology workers with H-1B visa holders.

The timeline for the H-1B-related review and changes was not clear in the executive order, which merely said they should be wrapped up “as soon as practicable”. “Some of them have gotten used to Trump’s pattern of saying he’s going to do things to help workers and then reneging on them”.

“The idea that Donald Trump is dramatically turning his back on his “America first” policy as well as his comment that the dollar is “too strong” are hurting the USA currency”, Lawler said.

Interestingly, the reforms are not targeting the H-2B visa program, which allows USA organizations, including Trump’s swanky bolthole at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, to bring in overseas workers for menial jobs to meet seasonal demands.