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June 29, 2020

President Trump Restricts Certain Types Of Visas

On the evening of June 22, President Donald Trump issued a presidential proclamation suspending the entry of individuals on H-1B (workers with highly specialized knowledge), H-2B (seasonal temporary worker), J (exchange visitors), and L (intra-company transferees) visas if those individuals are still outside of the United States and do not yet have an effective visa.

The order went into effect on June 24.

There are exceptions for legal permanent residents, spouses and children of U.S. citizens, temporary labor “essential to the food supply,” and those individuals whose entry “would be in the national interest” as determined by the Secretary of State or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). (The order asks the secretaries of State and DHS establish standards to define categories of individuals who meet the national interest exemption.)

The order also extends an April 22, 2020 proclamation that suspended the issuance of green cards for new legal permanent residents, through the end of 2020.

In the order, which is available here, President Trump said, “[E]xcess labor supply is particularly harmful to workers at the margin between employment and unemployment — those who are typically ‘last in’ during an economic expansion and “first out” during an economic contraction. … In the administration of our Nation’s immigration system, we must remain mindful of the impact of foreign workers on the United States labor market, particularly in the current extraordinary environment of high domestic unemployment and depressed demand for labor.”

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