Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Worker Visas in Doubt as Trump Immigration Crackdown Widens
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 6 years ago on
February 25, 2019

Share

NEW YORK — Immigrants with specialized skills are being denied work visas or seeing applications get caught up in lengthy bureaucratic tangles under federal changes that some consider a contradiction to President Donald Trump’s promise of a continued pathway to the U.S. for the most talented foreigners.

“You see all these arguments that we want the best and the brightest coming here. Yet we’re seeing a full-frontal assault on just all aspects of immigration.” — John Goslow, an immigration attorney
Getting what’s known as an H-1B visa has never been a sure thing — the number issued annually is capped at 85,000 and applicants need to enter a lottery to even be considered. But some immigration attorneys, as well as those who hire such workers, say they’ve seen unprecedented disruptions in the approval process since Trump took office in 2017.
“You see all these arguments that we want the best and the brightest coming here,” said John Goslow, an immigration attorney in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Yet we’re seeing a full-frontal assault on just all aspects of immigration.”
For American businesses, there is a bottom-line impact.
Link Wilson, an architect who co-founded a firm in Bloomington, Minnesota, said finding enough qualified workers within the U.S. has been a problem for years. That’s due to a shortage of architects, but also because his firm needs people with experience developing senior housing. He said employers who turn to international applicants do so as a last resort, putting up with legal fees and ever-expanding visa approval times because they have no other choice.

Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order

“We’re just at the point where there’s no one else to hire,” said Wilson, who hired an architect under an H-1B visa last year after enduring a long wait. He estimates his firm turned away about $1 million in projects in 2018 because it didn’t have enough staff to handle them.
Three months after taking office, Trump issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing Cabinet officials to suggest reforms to ensure that H-1B visas are awarded to the “most-skilled or highest-paid” applicants to help promote the hiring of Americans for jobs that might otherwise go to immigrants.
Subsequent memos have allowed for greater discretion in denying applications without first requesting additional information from an applicant, tossed the deference given to people seeking to renew their H-1Bs, and raised concern that the government would revoke work permits for the spouses of H-1B holders. One order restricted companies’ ability to use H-1B workers off-site at a customer’s place of business, while another temporarily rescinded the option of paying for faster application processing.
Attorneys who handle these applications say one of the biggest shifts is an increase in “requests for evidence,” or RFEs, from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. An RFE can delay a visa for months or longer as applicants and employers are forced to submit additional documentation over things such as the applicability of a college degree to a prospective job or whether the wage being offered is appropriate. If the responses are unsatisfactory, a visa may be denied.

Requests Were Ultimately Denied

“They’re just blocking the avenues so that employers will get frustrated and they won’t employ foreign nationals,” said Dakshini Sen, an immigration lawyer in Houston whose caseload is mostly H-1B applications. “We have to write and write and write and explain and explain and explain each and every point.”

“They’re just blocking the avenues so that employers will get frustrated and they won’t employ foreign nationals. We have to write and write and write and explain and explain and explain each and every point.” — Dakshini Sen, an immigration lawyer in Houston
USCIS data released on Friday shows an increase in the number of completed H-1B applications receiving an RFE, from about 21 percent in the 2016 fiscal year to 38 percent last fiscal year. The number continued to rise in the first quarter of this fiscal year, to 60 percent.
A growing number of applications with such requests were ultimately denied, while the approval rate among all applicants has fallen. Approvals also dipped in two other visa programs for foreign workers, including one for individuals with extraordinary abilities in areas such as science, sports and the arts.
Jessica Collins, a spokeswoman for USCIS, linked the changes to the president’s executive order, saying the goal was to reduce “frivolous” petitions and that “it is incumbent upon the petitioner, not the government” to prove eligibility.
Some employers note traditional three-year renewable terms of H-1Bs have also been changing; one lawsuit by an organization representing information technology companies claims some visas were valid for only a few days or had expired before they were even received.

Workers Caught in the Crosshairs

Meantime, a vague entry published in the Federal Register last fall advised that the Department of Homeland Security would propose additional revisions to focus on attracting “the best and the brightest” and to “ensure employers pay appropriate wages” to H-1B visa holders, which has raised alarms that the administration will move to narrow the definition of who qualifies.
Caught in the crosshairs of all this are workers like Leo Wang.
Wang, 32, spent six years after college in his native China learning all he could about data and analytics. He got into the University of Southern California, interned at a major venture capital firm and wasted no time after finishing his master’s before starting on another degree. He couch-surfed, passed up an enticing foreign job offer and amassed educational debt all in pursuit of the dream that ultimately came true: A six-figure Silicon Valley job.
As long as it took Wang to achieve his goal, it disappeared in record time.
Wang was working at Seagate Technology under an immigration provision known as Optional Practical Training, which gives those on student visas permission to work. But that expired last year, and because his H-1B application was in flux, he was forced to take a leave from Seagate and withdraw from the master’s program he was pursuing at Berkeley. He says he and his company dutifully responded to an RFE, compiling examples of his work at Seagate. But on Jan. 11, Wang got a final answer: He was denied an H-1B.
“All I wanted was to be able to see my American dream,” he said.

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952

Sandra Feist, an immigration attorney in Minneapolis, said talented foreigners discouraged by the visa process are beginning to look at opportunities in other countries, and she questions what that means for America’s future, especially if top-tier researchers who could contribute to science and medicine are turned away.
One of her clients, a computer systems analyst from India with a master’s degree from a U.S. college, filed his petition for an H-1B in April 2017 with 101 pages of documentation. He received an RFE, and a 176-page response was filed, with additional paperwork attempting to prove just how complicated the position was. He was denied. Feist filed a 282-page appeal, requesting that the file be reopened. Though the appeal was approved, there was a second RFE, which Feist said raises the same issues she already responded to.
With a U.S. work visa unlikely, that client is applying for permanent residency in Canada with his wife and U.S. citizen child.
CEOs for companies including Apple, Ford and Coca-Cola penned a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in August, saying immigration policy changes were undermining economic growth. “At a time when the number of job vacancies are reaching historic highs due to labor shortages,” they said, “now is not the time to restrict access to talent.”
A provision for immigration based on skills, education and employer needs dates back to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and the visa now known as the H-1B has until recently enjoyed wide support among politicians on both the left and the right. A Pew Research Center survey last year found broad approval for high-skilled immigrants among the public, as well, with support at 83 percent among Democrats polled and 73 percent of Republicans.

Trump: Changes Are Soon Coming

Trump has vacillated on the issue. During a March 2016 presidential debate, then-candidate Trump was asked about his opposition to visas for skilled workers, to which he said “I’m changing” and that he saw such policies as a way to keep top international students in the U.S. “We absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country,” he said.

“I still believe in the American dream,” he says. “It’s just that I personally have to pursue it somewhere else.” — President Donald Trump
His campaign followed that with a statement saying: “The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay.”
Last month, Trump again reverted to a more conciliatory note, tweeting that H1-B holders “can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship.”
Back in China now, Wang isn’t sure what to make of Trump’s words. He’s talked to a friend from Seagate, now at a Swedish firm, about openings there, and a former boss in Singapore has some prospects for him as well.
“I still believe in the American dream,” he says. “It’s just that I personally have to pursue it somewhere else.”

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Yastrzemski and Chapman Homers Help Giants Rally Past the Brewers

DON'T MISS

Fresno City Council Finally Passes a Tough Smoke Shop Ordinance

DON'T MISS

Fresno Unified Trustee Wittrup Says District Had Stronger Candidates Than Misty Her

DON'T MISS

Trump Poised to Offer Saudi Arabia Over $100 Billion Arms Package, Sources Say

DON'T MISS

Lights, Camera, Board Vote: Fresno Unified’s Carefully Choreographed Production

DON'T MISS

US Farm Agency Withdraws Proposal Aimed at Lowering Salmonella Risks in Poultry

DON'T MISS

On Major Economic Decisions, Trump Blinks, and Then Blinks Again

DON'T MISS

Candi Is the Dandy to Add a Little Sweetness to Your Life

DON'T MISS

How Trump Tariffs Could Upend California Farms, Wine Businesses, and Ports

DON'T MISS

Tulare Man Sentenced to State Prison for DUI Crash That Injured Two Women

UP NEXT

Chicago Bears Great Steve McMichael Dies at 67 After Battle With ALS

UP NEXT

Long Wait Is Over for Cam Ward, Travis Hunter and Other Draft Prospects Joining the NFL

UP NEXT

Golden State’s Jimmy Butler Injured in Game 2 Loss, His Status for Game 3 Unknown

UP NEXT

Jalen Green Makes Eight 3s to Help Rockets Even Series With Warriors

UP NEXT

US Justice Department Directs Investigations Over Gender-Affirming Care

UP NEXT

US Justice Department Cancels Hundreds of Grants for Police, Crime Victims

UP NEXT

Yelich’s 5th Career Slam and Bauers’ 2-Run Homer Power the Brewers to Win Over the Giants

UP NEXT

Happ Hits Game-Ending Single in the 10th as the Cubs Rally Past Dodgers

UP NEXT

Trump: No Plans to Fire Fed Chair Powell, but Wants Lower Rates

UP NEXT

Top Producer at ’60 Minutes’ Quits Amid Trump Lawsuit Pressure

Trump Poised to Offer Saudi Arabia Over $100 Billion Arms Package, Sources Say

8 hours ago

Lights, Camera, Board Vote: Fresno Unified’s Carefully Choreographed Production

9 hours ago

US Farm Agency Withdraws Proposal Aimed at Lowering Salmonella Risks in Poultry

9 hours ago

On Major Economic Decisions, Trump Blinks, and Then Blinks Again

9 hours ago

Candi Is the Dandy to Add a Little Sweetness to Your Life

10 hours ago

How Trump Tariffs Could Upend California Farms, Wine Businesses, and Ports

10 hours ago

Tulare Man Sentenced to State Prison for DUI Crash That Injured Two Women

11 hours ago

Judge Partly Blocks Trump Order Seeking to Overhaul US Elections

11 hours ago

Two From Search Group That Uncovered Mexico’s ‘Ranch of Horror’ Killed

11 hours ago

US Warns States They Could Lose Transportation Funding Over Immigration, DEI Policies

12 hours ago

Yastrzemski and Chapman Homers Help Giants Rally Past the Brewers

SAN FRANCISCO — Mike Yastrzemski and Matt Chapman homered as the San Francisco Giants rallied to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 6-5 on Thursday ...

6 hours ago

6 hours ago

Yastrzemski and Chapman Homers Help Giants Rally Past the Brewers

6 hours ago

Fresno City Council Finally Passes a Tough Smoke Shop Ordinance

7 hours ago

Fresno Unified Trustee Wittrup Says District Had Stronger Candidates Than Misty Her

President Donald Trump delivers remarks during an 'Unleashing American Energy' event at the Department of Energy in Washington, U.S., June 29, 2017. (REUTERS File)
8 hours ago

Trump Poised to Offer Saudi Arabia Over $100 Billion Arms Package, Sources Say

9 hours ago

Lights, Camera, Board Vote: Fresno Unified’s Carefully Choreographed Production

Chickens sit at a poultry farm. March 12, 2025. (REUTERS/Diego Vara/File Photo)
9 hours ago

US Farm Agency Withdraws Proposal Aimed at Lowering Salmonella Risks in Poultry

9 hours ago

On Major Economic Decisions, Trump Blinks, and Then Blinks Again

Candi, GV Wire's Adoptable Cat of the Week
10 hours ago

Candi Is the Dandy to Add a Little Sweetness to Your Life

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend