What are the H-1B visas and how could Trump administration change them? | Donald Trump News

President Donald Trump’s administration wishes to revise the country’s visa program for highly qualified foreign workers.

If the administration does what a civil servant describes, it would change H-1B Visa rules to promote employers who pay higher wages. This could effectively transform the visa into what an expert called “a luxury work permit” and disadvantage workers at the start of their career with smaller wages, including teachers. This could also upset the current Visa program lottery system used to distribute visas to eligible foreign workers.

“This change can prevent many employers, including small and medium-sized enterprises, from hiring the talents they need in shortage professions, which ultimately reduces the global competitiveness of America,” said David Leopold, former president of American Immigration Lawyers Association whose practice includes employers in the H-1B process.

It is difficult to find American workers in certain types of specialized fields, including software engineers and developers and certain STEM positions.

A White House office proposed the change on August 8, Bloomberg Law reported. Once the proposal appears in the Federal Register – the daily public report containing notices of changes in federal rules proposed – the plan will become subject to an official public commentary period. It could be finalized in a few months, although it is likely to deal with legal challenges.

Joseph Edlow, director of American citizenship and immigration services, told New York Times in July that H-1B visas should promote companies that planned to pay higher wages for foreign workers. Bloomberg’s law proposal described was in line with this objective.

Politifact did not see a copy of the proposal and the White House did not answer our questions. But the Ministry of Internal Security submitted the rule proposed to a Trump administration office in July, wrote the Greenberg Traurig law firm.

Trump sought to reform the H-1B program during his first mandate, but made limited progress. In January 2021, towards the end of Trump’s mandate, the Ministry of Internal Security published a final rule similar to the current proposal, but the Biden administration did not implement it.

Work visas were not a central element of the Trump immigration platform in 2024, but it was a point of debate In the weeks preceding his entry into office, with the billionaire businessman Elon Musk – a megadoneur of Trump who would serve briefly in his administration – speaking in favor of them.

What are H-1B visas?

The H-1B Visa program allows employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialized areas, with approximately two-thirds working in computer-related jobs, according to the Congressional Research Service. Most H-1B visa holders come from India, followed by China.

Currently, future H-1B employers must attest that they will pay the real wage of the H-1B worker paid to similar employees or to the salary in force for this occupation-according to the greatest number of wages.

To qualify for the non-immigrant visa, the employee must have a diploma, license or specialized training required by the occupation. The status is generally valid up to three years and renewable for an additional three years, but it can be extended if the employer sponsors the worker for the permanent residence, which includes permission to work and live in the United States.

Leopold said that the proposed change goes beyond the current salary mandate of the law.

“This statutory mechanism is designed to prevent employers from paying less than H-1B workers than their American counterparts, protecting American workers from travel,” said Leopold.

The congress hides the new H-1B visas at 85,000 per year, including 20,000 for non-citizens who have obtained advanced diplomas. The government approved 400,000 H-1B requests, including renewals, in 2024, according to the non-partisan PEW research center.

Amazon has managed employers in the country since 2020 in its number of H-1B workers, Pew discovered.

The New York metropolitan region has received more H-1B demand approvals than any other metropolitan area; College Station, in Texas, had the highest concentration of approvals.

What could change with H1-B visas?

The proposed policy promotes more paid employees, said experts.

Malcolm Goeschl, a lawyer based in San Francisco, said that the rule will likely benefit technological companies, many of which specialize in artificial intelligence. These companies pay high wages, including for entry -level posts. He said it would harm traditional technology businesses for new graduates.

“There will probably be a lot of lottery numbers available at the top of the salary scale in force, but very little or not at the bottom,” said Worschl. “You can see young graduates turn away from the American labor market from the start. Or you can see the companies simply pay the entry -level workers from other countries of wages much higher to have a chance at the lottery, which leads to the perverse situation where foreign workers earn much more money than American workers in the same situation. ”

The requirements in terms of wages in force are designed to protect American jobs against the counter-deputness by less paid foreign workers.

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Libertarian Cato Institute, said that the change would probably make almost impossible for recent graduates of immigrant colleges, who tend to win lower wages, to launch their careers in the United States on an H-1B visa.

“The short -term advantage would be that the people who are selected are more productive, but the long -term cost could be to permanently redirect the qualified future immigration to other countries,” said Bier. “This also effectively prohibits the H-1B for many industries that are on it. K-12 schools in rural areas looking for bilingual teachers, for example, will have no chance in this system. ”

In the midst of a shortage of teachers nationwide, some school districts hired H-1B visa holders, including smaller districts such as Jackson, Mississippi and larger districts, including Dallas, Texas. Linguistic immersion schools also often employ teachers from other countries using this visa program.

Why is there a debate on H-1B visas?

The debate around H-1B visas does not come up carefully along the partisan lines.

Supporters say that the existing visa program allows American employers to fill the gaps, compete with other countries and recruit the “best minds”. Critics highlight cases of fraud or abuse and say they are in favor of policies that encourage Americans.

In December, high -level Republicans discussed the Visa program on social networks.

Maga’s influencer Laura Loomer denounced the program and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon called this a “scam”. On the other hand, the billionaire Elon Musk, a former H-1B visa holder whose companies employ such visa holders, called for the program reform but defended him as a major talent recruitment mechanism.

Trump reassured himself with Musk.

“I have many H-1B visas on my properties,” Trump told New York Post at the end of December. “I thought at H-1B. I used it several times. It’s an excellent program. “

Senator Bernie Sanders challenged Musk, saying that companies abuse the program as a means of becoming richer and should recruit American workers first.

Such debates on visas have continued.

When the American representative Greg Murphy, a urologist, argued on August 8 that the visas “are essential to help to mitigate the serious shortage of doctors,” replied thousands of people. Christina Pushaw, a Republican who works for the Governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, rejected: “Why not understand the causes of the shortage of domestic doctors and try to make the legislation to resolve them?”