H-1B Reform Policy Closes ‘Diploma Mill’ Loophole

A new policy adopted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) will close a tiny loophole that allowed foreign nationals from non-accredited institution to obtain H-1B visas to remain in the U.S. as workers.

Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa. Most recently, that number has ballooned to potentially hundreds of thousands each year, as universities and non-profits are exempt from the cap. With more entering the U.S. through the visa, Americans are often replaced.

Under the new guidelines, the school where a foreign national obtains their degree must be an accredited U.S. institution of higher education in order to apply for an H-1B visa that is exempt from the 85,000 a year cap. The institution must now be an accredited school at the time that the foreign national obtains their diploma.

Institutions which pump out diplomas for foreign nationals with the purpose of getting them H-1B visas afterward in order to remain in the U.S. are referred to as “diploma mills,” as the Center for Immigration Studies’ David North has written.

H-1B visa expert John Miano, who wrote the book Sold Out with Michelle Malkin, told Breitbart Texas that the move to close the small loophole shows a change in direction for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) who he says has been “unshackled” by President Trump’s administration.

“What’s happened is that these USCIS people were just demoralized under Obama,” Miano said. “They were told to violate the law. With Trump, now they can just follow the law. Unshackled would be a good way of putting it.”

The policy move is the latest change for the Trump administration to reshape the H-1B visa in order to prevent American workers from being fired and forced to train their foreign replacements, a common issue with the H-1B law.

Most recently, Breitbart Texas reported that H-1B dependent employers like the Walt Disney Company, the University of California San Francisco and Eversource Energy, all of which have laid off Americans and replaced them with cheaper, foreign workers, either have been or are being investigated by the federal government.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.