Earlier this year a Trump draft executive order on foreign worker visas was leaked to the press and revealed the administration’s intention to craft legislation prioritizing “the interests of American workers and — to the maximum degree possible — the jobs, wages, and well-being of those workers.”While that specific executive order was never issued, rule changes quietly implemented by the Department of Homeland Security in April effectively accomplished the same goal and took direct aim at tech companies and their excessive use of the H-1B program.Per The Hill:
Without fanfare, the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Friday issued a policy memo that would make it harder for companies to fill computer programmer positions with workers on H-1B visas. The memo stated that being a computer programmer is no longer sufficient to qualify as a “specialty occupation.”
The agency followed up Monday by announcing that it would begin to crack down on H-1B visa abuses by conducting targeted site visits to companies with a high proportion of high-skilled visas in their workforce.
“The H-1B visa program should help U.S. companies recruit highly-skilled foreign nationals when there is a shortage of qualified workers in the country,” the agency said. “Yet, too many American workers who are as qualified, willing, and deserving to work in these fields have been ignored or unfairly disadvantaged.”
In a separate release on Monday, the Department of Justice said that it “will not tolerate employers misusing the H-1B visa process to discriminate against U.S. workers.”
Now, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has announced plans to hire 10,000 U.S. workers because he suddenly “needs the ability to be local” and because it is “absolutely the right thing to do.” And while we have no reason to doubt Sikka’s sincerity, it does seem convenient that he has just now realized his company’s need to “be local.”
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