Companies criticise US visa suspensions, but impact may be muted for now

In signing the order Monday, Trump cited the need to preserve American jobs during an economic downturn.

But businesses leaders rejected that rationale, with companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook and Amazon all releasing critical statements saying that the order would hurt them and the U.S. economy as a whole.

“We’ve heard from manufacturers, technology companies, accounting firms, pharmaceutical companies, cosmetics companies, among many others, about how these visa restrictions will harm their businesses, and the negative impacts will be felt by not only these companies, but also the American workers employed by them,” said Jon Baselice, executive director of immigration policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The H-1B visa program is available only to foreign workers who have a bachelor’s degree or higher and is often used to fill positions in the tech sector, though the visas are also used to hire teachers, architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers and other skilled workers.

The Trump administration’s suspension of H-1B visas is intended to push companies to look harder for Americans to fill those roles.

“They may have to raise wages; they may have to recruit in ways and in places that they don’t currently,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington that supports immigration limits.

But Jennifer Minear, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that companies often used H-1B visas because they could not find qualified American workers for specific roles.

“We already have a shortage of STEM workers in the United States; they’re not just going to suddenly become qualified to do these jobs, just because they lost their job doing something else,” Minear said, referring to science, technology, engineering and math.

American companies have become more comfortable with remote work over the past few months, and they may choose to respond to the visa suspension by hiring the same worker but having them work remotely in another country, said Joseph Vavra, associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

“From the perspective of the domestic worker who is displaced, that looks exactly the same, except now you’re not bringing in tax revenue and you’re not bringing in local demand or any of the other positive benefits you get from having that worker physically in the United States,” Vavra said.

The suspension of L-1 visas, which allow for transfers within companies and also allow companies to send an employee to the United States to establish a company office, could also have significant implications for the U.S. economy.

“This may discourage companies from opening U.S. offices if they aren’t able to get the visas to bring their employees from abroad to the United States,” Gelatt said.

Low-wage jobs in fields like landscaping, forestry, seasonal construction and seasonal hospitality have been filled by workers on H-2B visas. The economic crisis caused by the virus could change that, Gelatt said, and there may be more Americans facing the prospect of long-term unemployment who are willing to take those jobs.

Au pairs will also be subject to the ban, as well as interns, trainees, teachers, camp counselors and anyone participating in summer work travel, who would have normally been able to apply for J visas. Though with summer activities paused throughout the country, there may be less demand for workers to fill those roles.