Trump drafted an Executive Order Aimed at Work-visa Programs

President Donald Trump’s clash with Silicon Valley over immigration is about to become even more contentious, according to Bloomberg. After the new president banned refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Microsoft and others railed against the move, saying it violated the country’s principles and risked disrupting its engine of innovation.

Trump’s next steps could strike even closer to home: His administration has drafted an executive order aimed at overhauling the work-visa programs technology companies depend on to hire tens of thousands of employees each year. If implemented, the reforms could force wholesale changes at India companies such as Infosys and Wipro, and shift the way American companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple recruit talent. Companies would have to try to hire American first and if they recruit foreign workers, priority would be given to the most highly paid.

“Our country’s immigration policies should be designed and implemented to serve, first and foremost, the U.S. national interest,“ the draft proposal reads, according to a copy reviewed by Bloomberg. “Visa programs for foreign workers...should be administered in a manner that protects the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, and that prioritizes the protection of American workers, our forgotten working people, and the jobs they hold.“

The foreign work visas were originally established to help U.S. companies recruit from abroad when they couldn’t find qualified local workers. But in recent years, there have been allegations the programs have been abused to bring in cheaper workers from overseas to fill jobs that otherwise may go to Americans. The top recipients of the H-1B visas are outsourcers, primarily from India, who run the technology departments of large corporations with largely imported staff.

The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment on the draft. The proposal is consistent with the president’s public comments on pushing companies to add more jobs to the U.S., from auto manufacturing to technology. It’s not clear how much force the executive order would have if it is signed by the president. Congress is also working on visa reforms and the parties will have to cooperate to pass new laws. Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic congresswoman from California, introduced a bill last week to tighten requirements for the H-1B work visa program.

The legislation caps the number of people who can enter the U.S. annually at 85,000, including those with undergrad and master’s degrees. The proposed order is also aimed at bringing more transparency to the program. It calls for publishing reports with basic statistics on who uses the immigration programs within one month of the end of the government’s fiscal year. The Obama Administration had scaled back the information available on the programs and required Freedom of Information Act requests for some data.