President Trump’s immigration policy is downright toxic to most on the Left, but there is one area where the White House has a realistic chance to sign broadly bipartisan reform: a bill scaling back the H1-B visa program for high-tech workers.
Immigration hawks and liberal activists for years have both said the program is badly abused by employers, and Trump agrees with them. Even fans of the program now talk about the need for an overhaul.
“The odds are pretty good. This is a very clear priority for the administration,” said Calvin Moore, spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has co-sponsored one of the four H1-B reform bills that have been introduced in Congress.
Matt Biggs, spokesman for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which has long called for limiting the visa program, agrees. “In all of the years I have been following it, this is the best opportunity right now,” he said.
Even the high-tech industry, which uses the majority of the visas, says that change is needed — but only to update the program. “What we see from members of Congress is that there is a need and a desire to crack down on the bad actors in the industry,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a coalition group that includes Microsoft, Facebook and other technology companies.
Some businesses appear to be already pulling back from the program. While the Labor Department has already given out its annual allotment of 85,000 visas, the number of applications for them fell to about 199,000, down from 233,000 the previous year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported. The visas are awarded by lottery.
Trump signed a “Buy American” executive order last month that called for the Labor Department to review the program but needs congressional legislation to make significant changes.
A rough consensus has settled on raising the minimum salary and education levels for the visa workers, in effect making them more expensive for the companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere that sponsor them.
A White House official told reporters in a background briefing last month that it was leaning toward increasing the education requirements to get a visa, arguing that would allow the visa recipients to demand higher salaries.
Two bills call for raising the minimum salary for visa recipients to more than $100,000, up from the current floor of $60,000. That in turn would open up more jobs for U.S. high-tech workers, reformers say. Schulte said the industry could accept a wage floor of $80,000-90,000 but still wants to see the number of visas expanded.
Another suggestion that some reformers are leaning toward is to change the way the visas are allocated. The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers’ Biggs suggested replacing the lottery with an auction. “Let it go to the highest bidders. If these visas are so valuable, employers should be willing to pay whatever the market rate is,” he said.
Shikha Dalmia, a policy analyst with the free-market Reason Foundation, called the proposals “a naked attempt to price out foreign techies from the labor market.” It’s a claim that critics don’t necessarily deny: They are open in the belief that the system should be designed to benefit U.S.-born American workers.
Whether the H1-B visa program addresses a shortage of STEM degree holders – short for “science, technology, engineering and math” – in the U.S. economy is a hotly debated issue. A 2015 report by Bureau of Labor Statistics found evidence for both sides of the argument. “There is significant variation in the demand for graduates, depending on the STEM discipline,” it reported.
Schulte declined to answer if he thought there was a shortage. “I don’t see it as a zero-sum question,” he said.
Any legislation limiting the visas is far from a sure thing. It would require creating a strange-bedfellow coalition involving pro-Trump Republicans, liberal Democrats and organized labor, which the parties involved haven’t demonstrated much success in doing.
“We haven’t yet reached out [across the aisle], but we should. We have a pretty common interest,” said Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., who is co-sponsoring legislation to raise the minimum salary to $110,000. “There are a lot of people who have the same frustration with the program that I have.”
Visa fans are hoping the momentum can be harnessed to create broader legislation. “Critics have to realize that anything that is going to pass has to have the support of the business community,” said one Senate source, who requested anonymity.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who has been one of the main supporters of expanding the visa program in the past, has even put himself forward as a possible broker. “As one of the earliest senators to endorse President Trump, I believe that I can serve as a bridge between the president and the tech community to accomplish our shared goals,” he said.
Visa critics are wary of such overtures. Many said they lost opportunities to pass visa reform in past congresses because the issue became wrapped up in an effort to pass a comprehensive immigration bill. The high-tech visa then became a bargaining chip in those negotiations, they say.
Comprehensive reform seems even less likely this time because of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. But fans of the visa program are hoping that the president will still be a deal maker. “He is still a business guy. That is what we are banking on,” the Senate source said.
