Some 85,000 H-1B visa holders could gain more 'certainty' on status, president declares

While US President Donald Trump fights with Congress for money to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico to stop what he calls an "onslaught" of illegal immigrants, he has told 85,000 immigrants in the US who hold H-1B work visas that "changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty" to their status in the United States, "including a potential path to citizenship".

But it wasn't known what Trump's tweet on Friday morning might mean for the program that allows companies to hire graduates from other countries on visas that can last for as long as six years. Many companies — especially in the tech sector — use H-1B visas to help fill their workforces.

Trump said: "H1-B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the US."

"Although he didn't disclose any details with the Twitter announcement, we still read it as a positive sign," said Fang Peng, an immigration lawyer based in New York with more than 20 years' experience representing H-1B applicants.

"It at least indicated that he still welcomes international students, especially the Chinese talents. In the past, Trump and the administration tended to tighten policies against Chinese students, but with the tweet, it seems that the administration still wants the US to remain competitive in attracting talented workers," he told China Daily on Monday.

Despite the welcome signal sent by Trump's tweet, Fang questioned the part where he mentioned a path to citizenship and said that would require huge changes in US immigration policies regarding green cards and citizenship. "That part doesn't make sense to me," he said.

In 2017, Trump ordered a review of the system as part of a wider policy of "Buy American and Hire American". Last December, the Department of Homeland Security released a proposal to increase the number of H-1B visa recipients who have master's or higher-level degrees and would move the registration process online, cutting the amount of paperwork filed by applicants.

Since ordering the review, the Trump administration has been cracking down on the H-1B program. Denials of H-1B visa applications spiked 41 percent between the third and fourth quarters of 2017, according to federal data obtained by the National Foundation for American Policy. The Arlington, Virginia-based non-profit, non-partisan organization is dedicated to public policy research on trade, immigration, education and other issues of national importance.

Immigration officials also are requesting additional evidence and applying more scrutiny to applications than in the past. They also have been giving priority to those with American degrees and have scrapped a service for companies or workers to pay a fee to speed up their applications.

Every April, the US allows people to apply for the visas. Each year, 65,000 H-1B visas are granted, with another 20,000 reserved for those who hold advanced degrees from US higher education institutions. Demand for the visas often exceeds the supply, triggering a lottery system. 

Big tech companies apply for H-1B visas on behalf of foreign-born workers to fill their talent shortages. Amazon received 2,515 H-1B visas for employees and Microsoft won 1,479 in fiscal year 2017.

Some critics have accused those companies of using the system to hire cheap foreign labor instead of Americans.

American tech companies aren't the only beneficiaries of the program. IT recruitment firms are criticized for flooding the lottery with applications, earning a disproportionately high number of visas for workers who are then contracted out to other companies.

Nancy Kong in New York contributed to this story.

Contact the writer at [email protected]