US President Donald Trump has once again added to the worries of hundreds of thousands of U.S. visa seekers from top-draw executives and tech workers, down to seasonal workers and au-pairs.
By drawing out an already lengthy ban on the issuance of some green cards in place since April, and putting into place suspensions for other forms of visas until the end of the year, the president is once coming in for criticism on a range of fronts.
Critics on the American left have already called the move by Trump exploitative with the president hiding behind the COVID-19 pandemic to limit U.S. immigration.
The White House, however, has said that the move to continue a restriction on immigration on all fronts will help the American economy by creating more jobs.
It is believed that around 170,000 foreign nationals seeking green cards will now be affected, with thousands more to be affected by a continued delay on issuing H-1B visas commonly issued to tech workers from Asia headed to the US.
In 2019, almost quarter of a million applications were received for the 85,000 H-1B visas on offer.
In reports online, Mark Krikorian, who works as executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies said “This is a bold move by the Trump administration to protect American jobs” while the left leaning American Civil Liberties Union called the delay “exploitation of a pandemic to reshape immigration law.”
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