 | Posted by Jakob Paumgartner on June 24, 2020. Last updated 6 years ago. |
After freezing new green cards in April, President Trump signed an executive order on Monday to stop issuing new visas for guest workers until the end of 2020. The order is set to affect a variety of visas, among them the H-1B Visa, which is most often used by tech companies to hire foreign talent. The restriction will take effect on June 24th.
As unemployment rates sky-rocketed (13.3% at the time of this article) throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump saw a chance to push his strong anti-immigration stance forward. His reasoning behind the order was that with so many unemployed, Americans should occupy positions usually filled by migrant workers.
Trump’s opinion has been harshly criticized by prominent members of the tech industry. Many tech executives say restricting immigration of skilled workers could limit the economic output of the U.S. in the long-term.
CompTIA, the trade group representing big tech companies like Amazon and Google’s Alphabet, said “making it more difficult for bright minds to work in the U.S. only benefits our competitors abroad who will attract their talents to build and develop cutting-edge, job-creating goods and services.”
America has long been a magnet for the world's best talent in the fields of health and technology. As it becomes more difficult - perhaps even impossible - to come to the U.S. on an H1-B Visa, highly-trained job seekers might start trying their luck elsewhere. This could result in the U.S. falling behind when it comes to technological innovation. CEOs like Tobi Lutke of Shopify are already beginning to encourage potential tech-immigrants to pursue opportunities outside the U.S. via social media. “If this affects your plans, consider coming to Canada instead,” Lutke tweeted on Tuesday.
In a world where people are mostly free to travel wherever they want, and companies can easily choose amongst a multitude of countries to establish operations, governments who make immigration too difficult may find themselves abandoned by the tech world’s biggest players.
It isn’t only the big players who are worried. U.S. startups often rely on skilled H-1B employees to build out their products. Philip Camilleri of FoundersList, and formerly co-founder and CTO at SmartAsset, has this to say:
The H-1B for me meant the difference between having to leave the U.S. or being able to work at a startup. Honestly, without the H-1B, I am 99% certain I would not be where I am today — I wouldn’t have been able to work at a startup, nor subsequently build out SmartAsset.
And to the argument that H-1B workers hurt the economy, he adds:
We built a platform that reaches over 70 million visitors every month, SmartAsset employs over 150 people in NYC, and we built a system that allows individuals to truly understand their finances, complex financial products, and to connect with the right professionals when needed. All in all, I would hazard to say: a big net positive for the country, economy, and society.
He is hardly alone in his assertions. In a May 2020 report, the National Foundation for American Policy states:
H-1B visa holders do not adversely affect US workers, according to new research. On the contrary, the evidence points to the presence of H-1B visa holders being associated with lower unemployment rates and faster earnings growth among college graduates, including recent college graduates.
India’s NASSCOM, the trade body that represents IT service giants like Infosys Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services, argued that “without their continued contributions to the U.S. economy, the economic pain would worsen, industry would slow, and the timeline for a treatment and cure of COVID-19 would lengthen.”
Mike Krieger, Instagram co-founder, originally came to the U.S. on a H-1B Visa. He is an outspoken supporter of the immigrant workforce. “The U.S. economy really benefits from letting the right people in. Some of them will go on to become job creators; some of them will just go on to do really well at their jobs,” Krieger told Bloomberg in 2015.
Should Trump’s executive order persist beyond 2020, the negative consequences could have far-reaching effects. Innovation is a cooperative effort. If the U.S. cuts itself off from the rest of the world, it will be difficult to remain at the forefront of the technological field. This disassociation will not only impact private tech companies, but also hamper attempts to improve national security, and advance healthcare. 

It remains to be seen if this draconian order will withstand industry pushback. If nothing else, the latest polls for the upcoming election show Trump lagging 9.5 points behind challenger Joe Biden, who - if elected - will undoubtedly take a different stance on immigration.
For now, we must ask ourselves is this move part of the last gasp of a xenophobic president trying frantically to re-energize his base, or is this an enduring shift in American policy going into the future?
If so, where would that lead us?
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