Limiting legal immigration: “Protecting American Jobs and Workers by Strengthening the Integrity of Foreign Worker Visa Programs”

On Tuesday, Vox was given six documents that purported to be draft executive orders under consideration by the Trump administration. The source noted that “all of these documents are still going through formal review” in the Executive Office of the President and “have not yet been cleared by the [the Department of Justice or the Office of Legal Counsel].”

Read the draft order here, https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7872567/Protecting_American_Jobs_and_Workers_by_Strengthening_the_Integrity_of_Foreign_Worker_Visa_Programs.0.pdf.

A sweeping proposed order would, essentially, reduce the scope of legal immigration to the United States. It also begins to lay the administrative and policy groundwork for further legislation altering the scope of legal immigration into one that, in the words of the cover memo, “prioritizes the interests of American workers.

One provision would reverse Obama’s extension of the duration of Optional Practical Training work visas and decision to allow the spouses of H1 guest workers to also have work permits. Another provision would undo relief Obama has granted to people eligible for green cards but unable to apply for them due to what’s known as the “three- and ten-year bars.”

Another provision calls on the Department of Homeland Security to begin “site visits” at places that employ guest workers with L-1 visas and then to expand the site-visit program to cover all employment-based visa programs within two years.

It calls on the Secretary of Labor to commission a report investigating “the extent of any injury to US workers” caused by the employment of foreign workers, on DHS to report regularly on the number of foreigners working in the United States, and to “immediately restart work on regular benefit fraud assessments for all immigration benefits categories.