USCIS Lays Out Far-Reaching Anti-Immigration Agenda

MIdreamer · 04-26-2018, 03:57 PM

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In an April 4, 2018 letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Francis Cissna laid out a series of measures to make it far more difficult for the most sought-after employees in the world – individuals with degrees in science and engineering fields – to work in the United States. Appropriately, this comes a few months after USCIS “eliminated the words ‘nation of immigrants’ from the agency's mission statement.”

Cissna is part of a team of Trump officials who share a common mission: Reduce legal immigration and break the cycle whereby international students come to America, are later hired by U.S. companies and become Americans. Trying to end something so historically beneficial to America is wrong-headed and damaging to the country.

In practice, an H-1B visa is typically the only way a high-skilled foreign national or an international student from a U.S. university can work in the United States. That means new H-1B restrictions prevent foreign-born individuals from making their careers in America. (See this article for more background on H-1B visas.) Cissna's letter to Grassley proudly notes USCIS has already implemented a policy (not deferring to prior agency determinations) that has caused many people working years in the U.S. to lose their jobs and be forced to leave the country after applications to extend their H-1B status were denied.

Here's the “trick”: Trump officials themselves wrote the “Buy American and Hire American” executive order issued on April 18, 2017 – and since then have cited it regularly as a way to justify their actions to restrict immigration. The Cissna letter cites the executive order to justify prohibiting tens of thousands of women, the spouses of H-1B visa holders, from working in the United States.

However, real world facts, including low unemployment rates in technical fields and around the country, conflict with administration views that foreign-born individuals are preventing U.S. workers from finding jobs. “The U.S. labor market is the tightest it has been in nearly two decades,” reported the Wall Street Journal. “If every unemployed person in the Midwest was placed into an open job, there would still be more than 180,000 unfilled positions, according to the most recent Labor Department data.”

The April 4, 2018 USCIS letter to Grassley lists new restrictions the agency plans to impose:

Making it More Difficult for a High-Skilled Individual to Qualify for an H-1B Visa: USCIS “will propose to revise the definition of specialty occupation, consistent with INA§ 214(i), to increase focus on obtaining the best and the brightest foreign nationals via the H-1B program, and to revise the definition of employment and employer-employee relationship to better protect U.S. workers and wages,” according to the letter. “In addition, DHS will propose additional requirements designed to ensure employers pay appropriate wages to H-1B visa holders.”
Preventing H-1B Spouses – Primarily Women From India – From Working in the United States: “With regard to regulations, our plans include proposing regulatory changes to remove H-4 dependent spouses from the class of aliens eligible for employment authorization, thereby reversing the 2015 final rule that granted such eligibility,” the letter notes. “We announced this intention earlier this year in the semiannual regulatory agenda of the Department of Homeland Security. Such action would comport with the E.O. [executive order] requirement to ‘propose new rules and issue new guidance, to supersede or revise previous rules and guidance if appropriate, to protect the interests of United States workers in the administration of our immigration system.’”
Closing Off a Viable Option for a Foreign-Born Entrepreneur: “We are also drafting a proposed rule to remove the International Entrepreneur Rule (IER), as announced in the regulatory agenda,” notes the USCIS letter. “Due to the court order which invalidated the IER delay rule, the International Entrepreneur Final Rule is currently in effect. We have not approved any parole requests under the International Entrepreneur Final Rule at this time.”
The USCIS letter covers only part of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda, omitting, for example, a future regulation that would restrict or even eliminate the ability of international students to work on Optional Practical Training.

The administration has already reduced refugee admissions to historically low levels, sought to make it more difficult to apply for asylum and instituted a travel ban on individuals from selected countries. Legislatively, the administration opposed relief for Dreamers (young people brought to America as children) unless Congress agreed to the largest reduction in legal immigrants since the 1920s. And Trump officials are poised to enact a questionable rule on “public charge” as a way to keep more legal immigrants out of the country.

These are the future plan of USCIS, we are no longer a nation of immigrants.

BeeHive · 04-26-2018, 03:59 PM

Obviously. "Buy American Hire American" is the whole motto from POTUS. That is how the republican party thinks. This should not be a surprise to anybody.

2MoreYears · 04-26-2018, 04:02 PM

I've got mixed feelings about it. But on one hand I think this is good for our cause. Fingers crossed fellow DACAers.

justjohnjustice1988 · 04-26-2018, 04:47 PM

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Originally Posted by 2MoreYears

I've got mixed feelings about it. But on one hand I think this is good for our cause. Fingers crossed fellow DACAers.

This is not good for any cause.

It's xenophobia and ignorance.

Cant wait for 2020

Pianoswithoutfaith · 04-26-2018, 04:56 PM

This isn’t good for the USA at all. The reason why the USA so strong is because it’s able to attract the best of the best from all over the world.

versailles · 04-26-2018, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justjohnjustice1988

This is not good for any cause.

It's xenophobia and ignorance.

Cant wait for 2020

america will fall behind canada, and australia with their merit-based immigration system. it can either change to a better immigration system, one that respects american workers and people already here, or it can devolve into somewhere over-populated with people that undermine and crowd the job market for people like you and i. and who don't exactly have a burning desire to assimalate.

Alfredo93 · 04-26-2018, 05:26 PM

Isn’t this bad news ONLY for future immigrants that potentially are gonna move here to work? I don’t see how this affects DACA people or even regular illegals. Just people that want to come here in the future.

kyungwc · 04-26-2018, 05:36 PM

Wow... Luckily the U.S. is a strong power so we can recover from this, but the sheer stupidity of the administration doesn't disappoint

Got_Daca · 04-26-2018, 06:04 PM

Alarmism at best

H1b spouses not suppose be to working anyway

They arent the ones who were sponsored!

Like duh.

versailles · 04-26-2018, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfredo93

Isn’t this bad news ONLY for future immigrants that potentially are gonna move here to work? I don’t see how this affects DACA people or even regular illegals. Just people that want to come here in the future.

if anything it could help the broader undocumented population, with bills like the ones rand paul proposed where we'd cut the GC quota a year in half and allocate them to DACA recipients.
he also proposed doing this with the diversity visas.

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USCIS Lays Out Far-Reaching Anti-Immigration Agenda