I’m a firm believer that information is the key to financial freedom. On the Stilt Blog, I write about the complex topics — like finance, immigration, and technology — to help immigrants make the most of their lives in the U.S. Our content and brand have been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and more.
See all posts Frank GogolNew Trump H1B Reform Making Life More Difficult for Immigrants and Companies
Updated on April 10, 2024
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This year the United States and the United States Citizenship and Immigration services (USCIS) have to handle a high number of H1B applications.
What is the H1B Visa?
The H1B visa is provided to highly skilled workers that are hired by multinational companies. The H1B allows specialized employees to live and work in the United States for a limited amount of time.
President Donald Trump promised a new approach to handling immigration services when he was elected, the problem however, was that the administration of the H1B visa program failed due to record numbers H1B visa applications. The failure of the H1B visa program can be attributed to the impact of the program’s annual lottery in April.
As already mentioned above, this year more people than expected applied for an H1B visa, causing thousands of would be approved cases to get stuck waiting in line for a response. There was also a dramatic change in Request for Evidence (RFE) this year, going up to 44% when compared to numbers from last year, according to statistics from the USCIS. The number measured this year of Requests of Evidence is the highest number recorded since 2009.
Usually the H1B program is used by large Indian based IT companies to bring highly specialized and skilled workers into their companies in the United States. Now, since Trump’s new announcement, these companies work operate and work with different strategies so they are not solely dependent on the H1B visa program. In fact, the number of H1B visa applications dropped this year when compared to the increasing constant flow of applications in the last 5 years. The reason for this is because of the skeptical eye the United States government has been placing over new applicants, as the USCIS requests larger amounts of additional evidence from applicants. This led various companies to change their strategies in bringing specialized workers over that doesn’t require using the H1B program as their method.
Indeed, the immigration change has brought upon a very strange year, and up until now it is unclear how many applications have been rejected and how many have been accepted. Unfortunately, hundred of workers whose cases had not been resolved by October 1st were sent back home by their companies, due to pending responses from the US governement.
Reaction to the H1B visa changes
If we take a look at the famous Silicon Valley, the deterioration of the H1B visa program is something many tech leaders have shown extreme opposition to. It has been a top political priority for the valley and the current campaign of reform has changed much within the companies growing in the tech region.
Aside from the proposed travel ban and the cancellation of DACA, the political fight still continues to reject promising individuals from coming and staying in the US. What’s more, after the terrorist attack in New York, Trump decided to eliminate another visa lottery program: the diversity visa lottery.
According to the president, this program should have been eliminated a long time ago because of the belief that immigration should be merit-based.
The problem is that all these changes Trump decided to make is affecting everyone — it does not only affect people wanting to come to work to the US, but also affects multinational companies, startups, and US companies in the Silicon Valley. These companies have grown dependent on the H1B visa program to bring in a talented workforce from abroad to progress their projects.
One example of H1B changes affecting a big company
When we analyze the company Centro from Chicago that specializes in making technology for ad agencies, we notice the troubles they have faced with the new reforms rocking the immigration world for so many H1B visa pursuants.
This year Centro applied for three H1B visas for young employees that had recently graduated from universities in the US.
To their disbelief, only one of the three employees was put into the H1B lottery, something that rarely happens to Centro’s recruits. However, at least one person had made the lottery and given the applicant’s past experience, Centro was sure that their H1B applicant would attain his visa.
Months passed and in August the employee received a rejection letter from the USCIS saying he would not be receiving a visa to stay in the US. The company was shocked because they had been applying for H1B visas for years and not once had a case where an extremely specialized and highly skilled worker had gotten rejected.
The changes to H1B are happening fast
According to the immigration lawyer Emily Neuman, everything has changed dramatically just this year.
She said normally 90% of all her applications get accepted until October 1st, but this year, only 20% of all her applications got accepted. This is the same across the board for several people who deal with H1B application approvals and rejections. This Indicates a major change in this year’s H1B visa program which has many worried and dismayed at their prospects of attaining their long-awaited for visa.
Unfortunately for those who feel wrongly rejected, the USCIS declines any requested interview and will only send a written statement saying: “USCIS officers use currently existing policy that interprets existing statutory and regulatory requirements to evaluate petitions and make an eligibility determination, as done in the past, officers evaluate each petition on a case-by-case basis to determine if a petition qualifies for the benefit being requested.”
Since President Trump has stepped into office as POTUS, a lot has changed in the USCIS, including sharp changes in the staff that granted applications before. Now the USCIS is staffed with people who used to work for the Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. This may be directly correlated with the drop in vH1B visa approvals since Senator Grassley has always been critical of the H1B visa program.
Woefully, everything has changed for the worst in the H1B visa program. With fewer approvals, companies feel uncertain about how to bring on better talent faster. Company profits have been dropping with the scarcity of superior talent which has forced them to start planning how to not be dependent on the H1B visa program. Their plans include sending these specialized employees, which were supposed to work in the United States, to other offices overseas.
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What’s next for the H1B Visa Program?
If keeping jobs in the United States is Trump’s goal his plan does not seem be working for anyone’s benefit.
He is causing strife and anxiety among high tech companies working to stay competitive in the global tech industry. These companies will not let Trump cut at their profits because of his current immigration plan, and will find a way to stay competitive in the international tech arena.
All in all, things are not looking good for the H1B visa program and this was only the first year of the dramatic reform.
We only expect more changes to come in the near future, as well as more solutions on how to continue using foreign talent. Regardless of what happens, we will always keep you updated on the changes with the H1B visa program and hope that we will be able to bring you good news instead of bad.
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Frank Gogol
I’m a firm believer that information is the key to financial freedom. On the Stilt Blog, I write about the complex topics — like finance, immigration, and technology — to help immigrants make the most of their lives in the U.S. Our content and brand have been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and more.