Immigration lawyers are reportedly telling their clients who work in the tech industry and are in the US on visas to return home a month before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
“There's a storm coming,” says Jason Finkelman, an immigration attorney in Austin, Texas. told Business Insideradded, “And this time we know exactly what it will bring.”
The second Trump administration is expected to include several executive orders restricting access to several types of work visas, especially those common in the tech industry.
President Trump also vowed to reinstate a ban on people arriving from Muslim-majority countries.
“I think it's possible that President Trump might try to impose travel bans from certain countries, similar to when he first tried to put travel restrictions in place,” Finkelman told Business Insider.
“A travel ban would likely face challenges in court, but it could lead to problems for U.S. employers that would be restricted from hiring or retaining the foreign talent they need for their operations.”
Sophie Alcorn, an immigration attorney based in Palo Alto, California, told Business Insider that she strongly encourages clients traveling abroad to return to the U.S. quickly in anticipation of possible travel bans. .
Justin Parsons, a partner at an Arlington, Virginia-based immigration law firm, doubts President Trump's new travel ban could include China.
“The wild card for me is what happens with China,” Parsons told Business Insider.
President Trump has already promised to increase tariffs on imports from China.
Technology observers will be watching to see what President Trump will do about H-1B visas, which allow companies to hire immigrants for specialized jobs that require certain skills.
The H-1B visa was created in 1990 specifically for people with a bachelor's degree or higher in fields considered difficult to find employment, such as science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.
Critics say it allows companies to reduce labor protections and pay lower wages.
During President Trump's first term, the number of H-1B visa applications rejected by the federal government skyrocketed.
Shortly after taking office in 2017, he issued the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order, which ensured that business visas would only be issued to the highest paid or most skilled applicants to protect American workers. Ministers were instructed to propose such reforms.
He has previously said that the H1-B program, which is commonly used by companies to temporarily hire foreign workers (and which he has used in the past), is “very bad” and that high-tech companies He said that they are using the system to obtain foreign workers at low wages.
The newspaper requested comment on President Trump's transition to power.
with post wire
