Trump Walks Back H1B Reforms

All summer long my YouTube feed was flooded with compilations of recent American graduates and young professionals who are desperately looking for work.

Stem graduates, ivy league schools, advanced degrees, even with a few years’ experience - completely out of luck.

According to the White House, the unemployment rate for recent computer science majors is 6.1%. For computer engineers, it’s 7.5%.

On top of that, tens of thousands of Americans are getting laid off every month from the tech industry.

And yet, there are two and half million foreign workers in the us with green cards in high-tech fields. In fact, 65% of us it jobs are held by foreigners. Face it, they’re a lot cheaper than American workers.

President Trump certainly thinks it’s all connected. In a press release on Friday, the White House listed several examples of how cheap foreign tech labor is replacing American workers right in front of our eyes.

And so, knowing all that, I thought what president trump did on Friday night was brilliant. He signed an executive order to increase the application fee for h1b visas from $1,000 to $100,000 a year, every year - even for those who already had green cards.

“The whole idea is that no more will these big tech companies or these big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000 and then they have to pay the employee, so it’s just not economic. If you’re going to somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs. That’s the policy here. $100,000 a year for H1B visas,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained as Trump signed the order.

It was bold, and it seemed like the answer to countless prayers from unemployed Americans.

“Voters gave President Trump a resounding mandate to put American workers first, and he has worked every day to deliver on that commitment,” according to the White House press office.

Unfortunately, by Saturday, the white house was walking it back. It insisted that the higher fees only apply to new applicants. Not to the millions of foreign workers who are already here.

“This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on Saturday. “This applies only to new visas, not renewals, and not current visa holders.”

Oh well. Guess I’ll keep seeing those YouTube videos for a while.