opinion

Trump’s Administration Suspends H-1B Work Visas

On April 3rd, Trump’s administration suspended the processing of H-1B petitions — work visas for immigrants — for what some expect to be as long as six months.

If a company here decides that the best person for the job happens to not be born here, and they are willing to sponsor them, the government now says, “No.” I know this is Trump, but, I still must ask.

How on earth does that make any sense?

Is it not hard enough already? Isn’t the process already exhaustingly tedious? If I, as an international student, tried to apply for a job right after graduation in the U.S. with everything going for me my chances are about as good as me landing a job on Mars. And that was before Trump.

Now, the USCIS (the immigration sector of government) said it is doing this suspension to “be able to process long-pending petitions,” but you know what might be a more reasonable solution that doesn’t have to impact domestic and foreign companies so drastically?

Not making it so unnecessarily hard in the first place. Yes, it is no secret companies here, even major ones, rely on foreign workers.

According to myvisajobs.com, companies like IBM, Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services sponsor well over 10,000 H-1B workers and rely on the constant inflow of these workers to fill their ranks. Why so many? Are these companies just a bunch of immigrant-loving hipsters?

No; they just want what’s best for the job, whoever fills that position within reasonable limits. On top of that, the supply of workers domestically is often less than the demand of the market, especially in the tech industry. So why not look abroad? Oh well. Too late. Guess we’ll just have to deal with the shortages now, isn’t that right Trump?

Stepping away from pure facts for a moment, here’s something I’d like to say. This isn’t about administrative issues or encouraging some lazy Americans to get up off their asses and work.

This is all part of the idea that immigrants steal your jobs. That the Chinese and the Indians and the whole gang come in and take what they want from whoever they want, and poor old Americans are left unemployed. Darn scoundrels.

It’s not possible that maybe they are more qualified for the job or negotiate better for it? And it’s nonsense that companies put the best people in their positions, regardless of who, what, where, how? And let’s just forget that just over a few centuries ago, these very thieves who stole jobs for a living were your very ancestors who built this nation from the ground up.

Nobody likes history anyway, am I right? Forget the idea that competing with foreign workers pushes Americans to work harder, just like any kind of competition that brings out the fittest of the litter. Let’s just continue to lose logic and sense in policy under Trump. Make America forget again.

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