Washington: The Trump administration is planning to change the visa system for skilled foreign workers, a programme at the centre of a dispute between immigration hard-liners and tech industry leaders, said the new director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
In an interview with The New York Times, Joseph Edlow, the director of USCIS, also said the test to become a US citizen was too easy and should change.
“The test as it’s laid out right now, it’s not very difficult,” Edlow said on Thursday. “It’s very easy to kind of memorise the answers. I don’t think we’re really comporting with the spirit of the law.”
Edlow illuminated how the agency at the heart of the country’s immigration system would operate in President Trump’s second term, at a moment when the President has ordered a sweeping crackdown on immigration and a mass deportation campaign.
The H-1B visa programme for foreign workers has been the subject
of a fierce debate within the Republican Party. Edlow said it should
favour companies that
plan to pay foreign workers higher wages.
The proposed changes to the system could help alleviate criticism from those in the Right wing of the Republican Party who say the programme brings in workers who are willing to accept lower salaries than American workers. This week, Vice-President J.D. Vance criticised companies that lay off their own employees and then hire foreign workers.
But some of Trump’s most prominent backers in the tech industry have
said they rely on the programme because they can’t find enough qualified American workers.
“I really do think that the way H-1B needs to be used, and this is one of my favourite phrases, is to, along with a lot of other parts of immigration, supplement, not supplant,
US economy and US businesses and US workers,” Edlow said.
Historically, 85,000 visas are provided to hire so-called high-skilled foreign workers at companies through a lottery process. Edlow’s proposed changes would have to be approved through the federal government’s rule-making process.
Doug Rand, a former Biden administration official, said changing the H-1B process to favour higher-wage earners was misguided. “Like it or not, the H-1B programme is the main way that US companies can hire the best and brightest international graduates of US universities, and Congress never allowed DHS to put its thumb on the scale based on salary,” he said.
Edlow also said the administration wanted to change the naturalisation test required by prospective US citizens. As of now,
immigrants study 100 civics questions and must respond correctly to six of 10 questions to pass that portion of the test. During the first Trump administration, the agency increased the number of questions and required applicants to respond correctly to 12 of
20 questions.
Edlow says the agency plans to return to a version of that test soon.
After a brief tenure leading USCIS in an acting capacity in 2020, Edlow has now been confirmed by the Senate to lead the agency with a hand in citizenship certification and work visas, and the refugee and asylum apparatus.
“I think it absolutely should be a net positive,” Edlow said of immigration into America. “And if we’re looking at the people that are coming over, that are especially coming over to advance certain economic agendas that we have and otherwise benefit the national interest — that’s absolutely what we need to be taking care of.”
In the first Trump administration, USCIS made it more difficult for immigrants who use public benefits to get permanent resident cards, known as green cards (Edlow said he did not plan to revive this measure). The agency’s asylum officers contended with changes to the asylum system — to restrict protections — that were, at times, blocked by federal courts.
New York Times News Service