The heads of more than two dozen major American corporations warned the Trump administration this week that its inconsistent decisions on immigration are making it tough to hire and retain overseas workers, who fear they may face abrupt deportation if they move to the U.S. for work.
“The reality is that few will move their family and settle in a new country if, at any time and without notice, the government can force their immediate departure — often without explanation,” the Business Roundtable members said in the letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “At a time when the number of job vacancies are reaching historic highs due to labor shortages, now is not the time restrict access to talent.”
The letter highlights tensions between corporate America and the White House that date to the beginning of Trump’s term in 2017, with executives optimistic that he and Republican lawmakers would cut taxes and trim regulation but concerned that a president who campaigned on hard-line immigration policies would complicate hiring for positions that drew no qualified U.S. applicants.
The missive was signed by executives including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Over the past year, the CEOs wrote, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued several policy memos that effectively change the rules midstream for renewing temporary visas and obtaining permanent residency status.
“We are committed to upholding our nation’s immigration laws as passed by Congress,” Michael Bars, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration, said in a statement after the letter was delivered. “The administration has been relentlessly pursuing” reforms to employment-based immigration programs “so they benefit the American people to the greatest extent possible.”
The agency’s actions of late, however, are likely to disrupt American businesses instead, the executives said. A decision in October 2017 to drop a longstanding deference policy under which the government opted for consistency in individual cases absent a material change or previous error is particularly problematic, they noted.
“Now, any adjudicator can disagree with multiple prior approvals without explanation,” they wrote. The challenge is worsened by uncertainty about required identification, the likelihood that Citizenship and Immigration Services will soon revoke work-authorization eligibility for the spouses of some visa-holding employees and a recent announcement that the government will begin removal proceedings for legal immigrants if their applications to change or extend their status is denied and they lack another lawful reason to be in the U.S.
Together, the actions “significantly increase the likelihood that a long-term employee — who has followed the rules and who has been authorized by the U.S. government multiple times to work in the U.S. — will lose his or her status,” the Business Roundtable members wrote. “All of this despite the Department of Labor having, in many cases, certified that no qualified U.S. workers are available to do that person’s job.”
