President Biden Authorizes Trump Administration’s Suspension on Visa Programs Like H-1B, H-2B to Expire
- The directive was extended until March 31 as it “posed a risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the economic recovery following the COVID-19 outbreak.”
President Joe Biden has let a directive issued by former President Donald Trump to temporarily suspend entry of certain visa holders, to expire on March 31, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.
Presidential Proclamation 10052, Trump’s original suspension on visa holders, which impacted visa categories such as the H-1B and H-2B visa programs, was set to expire Dec. 31, 2020, before the former president extended the suspension through March 31. Trump said he enacted the directive because the entrance of visa holders “posed a risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the economic recovery following the COVID-19 outbreak.” He said the suspension merited extension into 2021 because existing concerns had not been eliminated.
The State Department said visa applicants who have not yet been interviewed or scheduled for an interview will have their applications prioritized and processed in accordance with existing phased resumption of visa services guidance. Visa applicants who were previously refused visas due to the restrictions of Presidential Proclamation 10052 may reapply by submitting a new application including a new fee.
Trump’s June executive order temporarily suspending new work visas barred hundreds of thousands of foreigners from seeking employment in the U.S., as part of a broad effort to limit the entry of immigrants into the country. “The June suspension did not affect the foreign workers already in the United States on H-1B visas,” the New York Times reported then. “But it upended the lives of those who were outside the country when the president issued his suspension.”
In October, the Department of Labor and Homeland Security in October, imposed a one-year limit on the placement of H-1B workers at third-party firms, and increased minimum pay for foreign workers on the H-1B. According to the Department of Labor, “the lowest possible wage that a company can pay an H-1B worker will rise from the 17th percentile of a profession’s income distribution to the 45th percentile, while the uppermost tier “will increase approximately from the 67th percentile to the 95th percentile.” The Trump administration had argued that the new rules, which fell under the departments of Labor and Homeland Security, needed to be issued rapidly because of unemployment caused by COVID-19. These rules were struck down by a federal judge in December who said the administration failed to show “good cause” for issuing the rules on an emergency basis.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data shows that 278,491 H-1B visa recipients were from India in FY 2019, accounting for 71.7 percent of the total number issued.China had the second highest share of visas issued to skilled foreign workers with 13 percent while Canada had the third-highest share at 1.2 percent.