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Trump’s Employment Immigration Plans

November 22, 2016

Trump’s Employment Immigration Plans

Author: Employment Immigration Attorney Alena Shautsova

Today President-elect Trump announced that during his first day of presidency, he is going to implement an executive action affecting Employment Immigration. To wit: Trump announced that his team would be working on tightening Employment Immigration laws to make sure that employment places would be saved for U.S. workers opposed to being given to immigrants.

It seems that somehow, President-elect Trump believes that by making it even harder for U.S. employers to employ foreign workers, U.S. workers will benefit from it and will accept employment spaces that somehow are taken from them.

To begin with, I must state that for a foreign worker to start working in the US on an H1B visa (the most common work visa type), the employer must test the market by posting notes to all interested workers and by posting ads regarding the job.  If, and only if, the employer does not find an eligible U.S. worker, an employer can hire a foreigner. But even prior to that, the U.S. laws impose a cap, a limitation on how many foreign workers can be hired at a given year in the United States.

Here is what is really going on: an employer would start going through the process only if the employer already has in  mind a foreign worker he/she needs to hire. An employer who hires a foreigner must pay him/her required wages that often are higher than the going market wage. In other words, an employer (unlike in the case of a US worker) cannot set a wage below required by the Department of Labor. I am positive that if a US worker were available, a worker that meets all the requirements and experience for the job, an employer would not be jumping through the hoops by trying to go through the process that requires money, time and induces an unwanted stress on all involved. By imposing restrictions on the hiring process, US laws limit US employers’ choices in hiring those who are most suitable for the job, impeding an employer’s ability to develop.

It is a different matter that sometimes the H1b process is not real, and a foreigner is “hired” for a position that does not exist just so that a foreigner may benefit from the US Immigration laws. It is an Immigration fraud, but no foreigner, in this case, takes a job from  a US worker: the job never existed, to begin with.

There are other types of Immigration work visas: TN, O, P, R, and L. They come with various restrictions and are used for those workers who either work in specific occupations or possess outstanding qualifications.

Interestingly, Mr. Trump’s wife allegedly came to the US on a work visa.

I am not sure (as it was not announced) about the specific of the coming changes. I hope that these changes would take into consideration that immigrants, and many of them, contribute to the development of the United States. The employer should have a choice who to hire, finding the best, the most hardworking and talented employees.