Report: H-1B Employers May Begin ‘Recruiting’ Americans after Trump Order

A new report suggests that the mere threat of President Donald Trump’s executive order to investigate abuses to American workers due to the H-1B visa is making U.S. companies rethink their hiring practices.

In a piece by POLITICO, the news agency noted that since Trump’s order demanding a “full legal review” into the H-1B foreign guest worker visa by the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ) and Labor (DOL), some companies are considering hiring more American workers.

“Businesses that use foreign workers, worried they’ll get singled out by federal agents during a visa review, are starting to explore the possibility of recruiting domestic labor,” POLITICO stated in the report.

As mentioned by NumbersUSA’s Jeremy Beck, the move by U.S. companies directly contradicts the open border lobby’s and tech industry’s longtime claim that there are not enough high-skilled Americans to fill jobs in the country.

According to Beck, the H-1B visa “has become part of the domestic hiring problem,” with big businesses and outsourcing firms often times using the foreign guest worker visa to fire American workers and have them train their foreign replacements, who end up costing the business less in compensation.

Trump’s legal review will include tracking down abuses within the H-1B visa program where more than 85,000 Americans are either replaced or passed over for jobs by foreign nationals.

While immigration hawks and American worker advocates praised Trump’s move to investigate the H-1B visa and its negative impacts, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supports amnesty for illegal immigrants, panned the executive order, as Breitbart Texas reported.

If the H-1B visa program had never been introduced and enacted, computer science job availability in the labor market would be up 11 percent and wages in the tech industry would have increased by five percent, Breitbart News reported.