Trump Admin Tightens H-1B Guidelines to Keep American Workers from Being Replaced by Foreign Labor

A Cuban migrant man receives his passport with the visa granted by the immigration office
REUTERS/JUAN CARLOS ULATE

A new directive by President Trump’s administration seeks to prevent American workers from being replaced by foreign labor by making it increasingly difficult for foreign nationals to continuingly have their guest worker visas renewed.

A memo issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency, is just one step in pro-American worker reforms occurring in the H-1B visa industry.

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 non-profits are exempt from the cap. With more entering the U.S. through the visa, Americans are often replaced and forced to train their foreign replacements.

Under new guidelines, though, USCIS will vet foreign workers currently holding U.S. jobs as if they were first-time applicants, a departure from previous agency practices where foreign workers already in the U.S. were readily given green lights to remain in the U.S.

“This new policy is in line with the Trump administration’s goal to protect American workers from discrimination and replacement by foreign labor,” pro-American immigration group NumbersUSA said in a post about the new guideline. “This new policy will make sure that only qualified H-1B workers will be allowed to stay in the U.S. and will help crack down on visa fraud and abuse.”

Under the H-1B visa, foreign workers are brought to the U.S. by corporations who often time replace Americans. Those replaced Americans have previously told Breitbart News that the H-1B visa program is “treason.”

“They know what they’re coming here to do,” one American worker previously told Breitbart News of the discrimination she faced in the H-1B visa industry. “They will undermine you. I’ve never seen the level of depravity as I saw in my experience with this.”

The pro-American worker initiative comes as USCIS is headed by Lee Francis Cissna, who previously worked on immigration-related issues for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

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

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.