H-1B Visa Lottery Could Be Replaced With Salary-Based Selection
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is proposing replacing the program with one that gives priority to the jobs with the highest wages
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed to effectively replace H-1B visa lottery. The government awards 85,000 new H-1B visas to foreign workers a year, through a process of random selection, and demand has consistently outnumbered supply. The Trump administration is proposing replacing the selection process with one that gives priority to the jobs with the highest salaries.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. Entry-level workers would be less likely to qualify for visas under the proposal.
Visas would be awarded to applicants at the highest wage level of their given occupation within a particular geographic region, under the proposal. The government calculates four wage levels for each occupation in a given region, and employers are required to pay salaries at or above those levels based on their visa worker’s job experience. This would almost guarantee that no applicants ranked at wage level one—roughly entry-level workers—would qualify for visas. DHS offered an alternative that would keep a lottery-like system but give foreign professionals at higher wage levels an increased chance of winning.
It has long argued that the current program allows employers to hire foreign workers at lower salaries. Administration officials say that awarding visas to foreign professionals who would earn the highest salaries in their fields would create upward pressure on the market overall. “The current use of random selection to allocate H-1B visas makes it harder for businesses to plan their hiring, fails to leverage the H-1B program to truly compete for the world’s best and brightest, and hurts American workers by bringing in relatively lower-paid foreign labor at the expense of the American workforce,” said Acting DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli.
3. Business groups and immigration advocates have criticized the proposal.
“This proposal will significantly disrupt the operations of many businesses by denying them access to the talent they need to grow and create jobs,” said Jon Baselice, executive director of immigration policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
4. The administration has made a series of changes to restrict access to the H1-B program.
In June, the Trump administration tried to block all new H-1B visa holders from coming to the U.S. this fall, when the visas are typically awarded each year, but the temporary ban was lifted by a federal court earlier this month. Additionally, earlier this month, the administration released rules that would significantly raise the salaries employers must pay their visa workers and restrict the sorts of degrees and occupations that qualify applicants for the H-1B. Those rules are being challenged in at least three separate lawsuits by business groups and universities, who say the new rules would stifle economic growth by limiting the pool of talent companies and research institutions can draw from.
5. The proposal comes days before the U.S. presidential election.
A government official involved in enacting the new rule said the Trump administration plans to complete the policy before the end of the president’s first term, so that it will take effect before the next registration period opens in March 2021. If elected, former vice president Joe Biden could choose to reverse the policy, though his views on it aren’t known.