"We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens," President Donald J. Trump

June 23, 2020 - On Monday, President Donald J. Trump's White House released a Fact Sheet stating the President is putting American workers first as we restore our economy to greatness.

• President Trump is extending the pause on new immigrant visas through the end of the year to ensure we continue putting American workers first during our ongoing coronavirus recovery.
• President Trump is building on this measure with an additional pause on several job-related nonimmigrant visas—H-1Bs, H-2Bs without a nexus to the food-supply chain, certain H-4s, as well as Ls and certain Js—preserving jobs for American citizens.
• President Trump’s efforts will ensure businesses look to American workers first when hiring.
  • Many workers have been hurt through no fault of their own due to coronavirus and they should not remain on the sidelines while being replaced by new foreign labor.
• The Trump Administration has also finalized regulations to eliminate the incentive to file an asylum application for the primary purpose of obtaining an Employment Authorization Document.
• With some exceptions, we should not permit large numbers of foreign workers to enter the United States at a time when so many Americans are out of work.

• At President Trump’s direction, the Trump Administration is taking action to reform our H-1B immigration program.
• Under these reforms, the H-1B program will prioritize those workers who are offered the highest wage, ensuring that the highest-skilled applicants are admitted.
• The Trump Administration will also close loopholes that have allowed employers in the United States to replace American workers with low-cost foreign labor.
• These reforms will help protect the wages of American workers and ensure that foreign labor entering our country is high skilled and does not undercut the United States labor market.

• Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans support pausing immigration as we recover as a Nation from the coronavirus pandemic.
  • A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 65% of those polled support pausing immigration into the country, including 61% of minority respondents.
  • A Pew Research Center poll found that 81% of Americans see mass immigration as a threat as we confront the challenges posed by the coronavirus.
• Democrats and liberal commentators used to support such commonsense efforts to protect American jobs.
  • Sen. Bernie Sanders: “You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low-wage workers, or do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those [American] kids?”
  • Paul Krugman stated that “Immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That’s just supply and demand.”
  • Then-Sen. Barack Obama warned that mass migration “threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net.”
    Source: Office of the White House
    
    Related: President Donald J. Trump Issues Proclamation Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the U.S. Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak