President Trump will expand an executive order on Monday, halting a series of visa programs that bring hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to the United States to take American jobs.
The order will halt the inflow of foreign worker pipelines until at least December 31. The visa programs suspended include:
- H-1B visas, who take white-collar U.S. jobs
- H-4 visas, who are the spouses of H-1B visa holders
- H-2B visas, who take blue-collar nonagricultural U.S. jobs
- L visas, who take white-collar U.S. jobs
- J-1 visas, who take a variety of blue-collar and white-collar U.S. jobs
“Obviously American workers have been hurt, and it’s nobody’s fault that the coronavirus hit, but it did do a blow to the economy and to businesses who were furloughing and laying people off, and we want to make sure that Americans get hired into those spots,” said Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli.
Altogether, the order is expected to free up about 600,000 American jobs for the more than 30,000,000 Americans who are jobless mostly due to the Chinese coronavirus crisis.