President Trump extends US work visa freeze to year-end
US President Donald Trump has prolonged a ban on US employment permits to year-end and broaden it to include H-1B visas used widely in the tech industry, the White House said Monday.
A senior administration official told journalists that the move would free up 525,000 jobs, making a dent in the high unemployment rate caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
An executive order extends and widens the 60-day freeze Trump placed on new work permits for non-US citizens two months ago. The administration official said the new order would extend to the end of 2020 and include H-1B visas provided to 85,000 workers each year with special skills, many of them joining the US technology industry.
It will also cover most J visas, common for academics and researchers, and L visas used by companies to shift workers based overseas to their US offices.
The official said the order was necessary to respond to soaring unemployment that resulted from the COVID-19 shutdown.
The official also stressed the H-1B visa freeze was temporary while the program is restructured, shifting from an annual lottery that feeds coders and other specialists to Silicon Valley to a system the gives priority to those foreign workers with the most value.
The move also freezes most H-2B visas — used each year for about 66,000 short-term, low-skilled jobs in landscaping, food and hospitality industries — and H-4 visas, which allow spouses of other visa holders to work. Exemptions will apply to seafood processing plants and to au pairs, foreigners offering families household help like childcare.
