Trump Admin Filing More H-1B ‘Challenges’ on Companies, Report Claims

Importing foreign workers is becoming tougher under the Trump Administration compared to the Obama era, a report finds.

In a Reuters report, data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency revealed how the Trump Administration is challenging employers’ demands for trying to bring foreign guest workers on the H-1B visa.

Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. That number has ballooned to potentially hundreds of thousands each year, as universities and nonprofits are exempt from the cap. With more entering the U.S. through the visa, American workers are often replaced and forced to train their replacements.

The USCIS data show a 45 percent increase in “challenges” between January and August of 2017 among employers trying to import H-1B workers. The “requests for evidence” generally demand employers provide further information exhibiting why staffing needs cannot be met with local candidates.

An employer may also be hit with a USCIS challenge if the agency does not believe pay is appropriately set.

“What the Trump Administration has done for the first time in a very long time is take seriously the fact that companies are misusing the H-1B system,” the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA spokesperson Russell Harrison told Reuters in an interview.

The H-1B visa program has contributed to the displacement of American workers in addition to outsourcing to countries like India and Malaysia–where workers are much cheaper to pay.

A study by the Center for Global Development details how the widespread use of the H-1B visa has led to outsourcing and displacement of Americans while strengthening bottom lines through “firm productivity” and “consumer welfare,” as Breitbart Texas reported.

Researchers admit that American workers, because of the importation of foreign labor, are displaced and forced to take jobs in non-computer science careers.

“The migration and rise in Indian exports induced a small number of U.S. workers to switch to non-CS occupations, with distributional impacts,” the study states.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.