Trump immigration ban to suspend OPT

The unemployment rate has skyrocketed from 3.5% to 14.7% since the economic lockdown due to COVID-19 in the United States. In a way to solve this “no job to work” issue, the Trump Administration has sent recommendations for limiting legal immigration including suspending OPT (Optional Practical Training) program during the COVID-19 pandemic. If this recommendation by the Department of Homeland Security is approved, it will be in effect from this month. Based on the article, Trump administration weighs suspending program for foreign students, prompting backlash from business tech by Julia Ainsley and Laura Strickler, let’s get into why the Whitehouse and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) want to suspend the OPT program in detail and how American business and university communities respond to this “Trump immigration ban” news.

Contents

• A short history of the Trump immigration ban
• Responds of business and university leaders

A short history of the Trump immigration ban

In April 22, 2020, the President Trump announced the Proclamation Suspending Entry of Immigrants Who Present Risk to the U.S. Labor Market During the Economic Recovery Following the COVID-19 Outbreak, which suspends entry of non immigrant workers till the U.S. economy recovers in the face of COVID-19. Few weeks later, on the letter that Senator Tom Cotton and Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Josh Hawley of Missouri wrote to the White House on May 7, they insisted to keep suspending entry of new non-immigrant guests and to suspend OPT along with H-1B visas (for highly skilled workers) and H-2B visas (non-agricultural seasonal workers). Actually, the movement of so called “immigration hawks,” or “immigration hard-liners” to limit OPT goes all the way back to 2015. Stephen Miller, who now is a senior advisor to the President Trump, had helped Senator Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz to write administrative recommendations to curb OPT. They also wanted to remove all employment opportunities for international students unless they have 10 years of work experiences.

In addition to this, in 2018, Stephen Miller had assisted other senators to ban Chinese international students to study in the United State which was denied by the U.S. Congress. Now the question arises, why “immigration hard-liners” plan out to take away employment opportunities from international graduates? There are two main reasons. As we can see in this letter to the Congress, the acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, doesn’t like the idea of providing work opportunities to non immigrants, because it limits job opportunities for Americans. Chad Wolf once said “We see some of these programs (OPT, CPT, STEM OPT) have been potentially abused in the past” in his speech. For him, employment authorization programs like CPT, OPT and STEM OPT work as a gateway for non immigrant students to “stay here and work.” Thus, they share a goal of decreasing overall immigration. On the other hand, Senator Tom Cotton argues that Chinese students bring back what they’ve learned in the U.S. to their home country. In this sense, he insisted to ban Chinese students to work in the technical fields and we know that now Chinese graduate students who intend to study or research about “military-civil fusion technology” cannot enter the U.S..

Related post: Chinese students and researchers visa ban by Trump

We urge you to continue to suspend new nonimmigrant guest workers for one year or until our new national unemployment figures return to normal levels whichever comes first.

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At a time when millions of Americans and lawful permanent residents are graduating from college with severely limited job opportunities due to COVID-19, it makes absolutely no sense for the administration to continue a regulatory program that allows foreign graduates to take jobs Americans need.

NBC NEWS, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WEIGHS SUSPENDING PROGRAM FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS, PROMPTING BACKLASH FROM BUSINESS TECH WRITTEN BY JULIA AINSLEY AND LAURA STRICKLER

Responds of business and university leaders

As I mentioned above, this “Trump immigration ban” narrative is not new at all, rather it has come out repeatedly with various reasons behind. Todd Schulte, president of FWD.US – a pro-immigration reform group – also pointed this out. “Three years ago, when unemployment was at 4 percent, the signatories who were in the Senate at the time tried to slash legal immigration by more than 50 percent. … Today, as unemployment has skyrocketed, these senators now say we need to slash legal immigration in response to the COVID-19 crisis,” Schulte said. By the way, members of FWD. US are comprised of business and tech leaders including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates and they make their voices to solve the failed immigration and criminal justice systems. Along with Schulte, Julie Schmid, executive director of the American Association of University Professors also stated that it has more harm than good. “Suspending or ending OPT makes no practical sense — it solves no problem, it reduces the quality of America’s higher education system, and it threatens the international exchange of ideas so vital to academic freedom,” said Schmid. In this perspective, for her, “as with Trump’s Muslim ban, this is just bigotry posing as concern for national security.”

To summary, the Department of Homeland Security recommends limiting immigration, which includes suspending employment authorization programs for students and graduates from all over the world, to protect American job seekers during the COVID-19. Business, tech and education leaders don’t agree that this anti-immigration policy can be a solution for the COVID-19 crisis. Instead, they believe this would threat U.S economy as well as academia. While many of immigration hawks are concerned about negative impacts that non immigrants cause to the U.S. labor market and U.S. economy, the research shows the opposite. As Julie Schmid mentioned, according to NAFSA’s research, international students had contributed around $41 billion to the U.S. economy only in the academic year 2018-2019. In next blog post, researches about economical impacts that international students bring in to the United States will be discussed.

References

• Trump administration weighs suspending program for foreign students, prompting backlash from business tech by Julia Ainsley and Laura Strickler
• U.S. unemployment rate soars to 14.7 percent, the worst since the Depression era by Heather Long and Andrew Van Dam