Trump to sign new order on H-1B visa to encourage hiring Americans

The Dollar Business Bureau

It will become harder for Indians to get H-1B visa as the United States President Donald Trump will sign on Tuesday an executive order to direct the federal agencies asking them to recommend changes in the temporary visa programme that is used to hire foreign employees to the US for filling the high-skilled jobs.

Two senior officials in the US government briefed the reporters at the White House and said, “President Trump will use the “buy American and hire American” order to seek changes in government procurement practices to increase the purchase of American products in federal contracts.”

The US President is to sign the executive order on his visit to the international headquarter of Snap-On Inc, a manufacturer of tools in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The order to be signed by Trump will call for the stringent enforcement of all the laws related to the entry of a foreign national into the US of labour for the mentioned purpose of generating high wages and employment rates for the employees in the US,” said one of the senior officials.

The order will direct the departments of Justice, Labor, State and Homeland Security to take action in cracking down on what these officials called the “fraud and abuse” in the immigration system of US for protecting the American workers.

It will also call on these four departments to recommend reforms for ensuring that the H-1B visas are given to the highly skilled or the highest paid applicants.

H-1B visas are awarded to foreign nationals for “specialty” occupations which normally require higher education that includes but is not restricted to, engineers, scientists or computer programmers, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The US government follows a lottery system for awarding 65,000 H-1B visas every year and distributes randomly another 20,000 visas to graduate student workers.

The number of H-1B visa applications fell down to 199,000 in the current year from 236,000 last year, as per the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.