Last week, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation requiring companies to pay $100,000 for new H-1B visas, and the world went into a frenzy. People with these visas who were out of the country scrambled to return to the U.S. to avoid the fee, while others attempted to cancel their flights and trips, worried they might not be allowed back into the country if they left. This new policy, clarified by the White House, applies only to new visa applications, not to existing ones. Yet, the panic has already set in.
According to the American Immigration Council, the H-1B visa is a temporary work visa that allows employers to petition for foreign professionals (holding a bachelor’s degree or higher) to work in the US. While Congress continues to restrict the number of H-1B visas allowed each year, this proclamation represents a significant step against mass immigration, effectively cutting out thousands of skilled workers who come into the country every year.Â
Contrary to some beliefs, H-1B visas actually benefit the job market rather than taking jobs away from US citizens. Based on information from The American Immigration Council, immigrant workers invest and spend their wages in the US economy, creating demand for more consumer goods and, consequently, more jobs. Without immigrant workers, the need for goods is lessened, and fewer jobs are needed.
To put this into perspective, let’s say that a town has 1,000 people. There is one grocery store in that town, and to sustain operations for each person living in the town, 10 people must be employed. However, if 500 people move out of the town, the store is no longer making money from those people, and now only five people are needed to sustain the store for the 500-person town population. Therefore, five people in that town lost their jobs. Ergo, immigrants are vital to the prosperity of a continuously developing country.Â
Furthermore, businesses will respond to the growth of immigrant workers and continue to expand their U.S. operations, rather than looking overseas for employees. Therefore, one can reason that tech companies, without the influx of skilled employees, will likely base their operations overseas and move beyond the U.S. market. Immigrant workers provide companies with an incentive to invest in America, thereby sustaining U.S. economic growth. If companies shift priorities away from the U.S., the economy will take that hit, and so will the American people.Â
While there is a rhetoric that immigrant workers take away jobs from the American people, blindly following others’ opinions without learning the facts is what creates the political polarization that we have today.
Immigrants have been the backbone of the U.S. since its inception over 200 years ago. History has consistently shown that immigration leads to development and economic growth. Technically, aside from Native Americans, every person in this country is an immigrant or the ancestor of immigrants. It is easy to blame a specific group of people for our problems, but if we dissect the issue and look closely, such problems go much deeper than that.Â
All in all, Trump’s new proclamation could have devastating effects on the nation’s economy and job market. It is essential to recognize that people are not the source of the country’s issues, but rather poor policies and shifting priorities. Immigrants are not the reason for the lack of jobs, but rather the reason the U.S. is a global economic superpower in the first place.