Its centerpiece is the replacement of the H-1B lottery with a system that distributes visas on the basis of wages, skills and education.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday dubbed “Buy American, Hire American” that calls for sweeping reform of the H-1B visa process.
Its centerpiece is the replacement of the H-1B lottery with a system that distributes visas on the basis of wages, skills and education.
“We want to switch away from a random lottery system, in which it’s weighted toward the lowest wage workers, towards a system that prioritizes higher skilled, higher paid workers,” said a senior administration official, in a background briefing to reporters on the condition that officials not be identified.
Such an H-1B reform “would make it much more difficult to use it to replace American workers,” the administration official said.
With this order Trump makes his H-1B reform effort official, but the changes that the administration wants will take time.
The White House intends to follow a two-pronged approach to H-1B reform. It will make administrative actions as it works with lawmakers on reform bills. But it’s unclear how many changes it can make administratively, and how much cooperation it can expect from Congress. Many lawmakers support reform, but there are differences in approaches.
Trump has been telegraphing these visa changes for a while. He was critical of the H-1B program during his election.
