LF Cissna, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, says he could be about to draft a new provision that would prevent workers with H-1B US visas from replacing native-born US workers if passed by Congress. Cissna made the comments at an Immigration Newsletter conversation event on 15 August.
Cissna said he would love to see a one-sentence provision passed by Congress, which he would be willing to write himself, to prevent American workers being replaced by H-1B US visa holders. In April, US Citizenship and Immigration Services returned all H-1B US visa petitions not chosen by the computer-run lottery system. US tech firms rely heavily on overseas workers from nations such as China and India, with the H-1B US visa being a non-immigrant US visa that enables specialized overseas workers to work in American businesses.
But, Cissna added that US employers may want to hire high-skilled overseas students educated in the US and that there are also tweaks, which could be made to the administration of the H-1B program, giving such students a better chance of getting an H-1B US visa.
The Trump administration has also been contemplating preventing the spouses of high-skilled US visa holders from being able to work in the US, which could result in as many as 100,000 people losing their jobs, according to a report from Bloomberg.