President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending immigration in view of the coronavirus epidemic impacts Green Card hopefuls mostly, but not spouses and underage children of existing US citizens, healthcare professionals such as physicians and nurses and rich investors.
It does not affect non-immigrants work visas, but it was penciled in as something that can be considered.
“In order to protect our great American workers, I’ve just signed an executive order temporarily suspending immigration into the United States,” Trump told reporters after signing the order Wednesday. “This will ensure that unemployed Americans of all backgrounds will be first in line for jobs as our economy reopens.”
An estimated 26.4 million Americans have been rendered jobless by the shutdown of the country because of the coronavirus epidemic and the president has said he wants American to have the first claim to jobs still available or those that will become available, not foreigners.
The executive order suspends all immigration for the next 60 days and applies to foreigners who are outside the United States, do not have a valid immigrant visa or any other official travel document issued before the other went into effect.
It does not apply to current permanent residents (Green Card holders), physicians and nurses, medical researchers who can help combat the coronavirus outbreak, and their dependents.
{{/usCountry}}It does not apply to current permanent residents (Green Card holders), physicians and nurses, medical researchers who can help combat the coronavirus outbreak, and their dependents.
{{/usCountry}}Also exempted from the suspension are spouses and under-21 children of US citizens, applicants for EB-5 investor visas, members of the US armed forces and their dependents, asylum seekers and refugees.
The order can be terminated at the end of the 60-day period, or extended, or toned down or made more expansive.
A a provision in the order says “additional measures” could be considered based on a “review (of) nonimmigrant programs”, which could include, though not mentioned in the order, short-term H-1B visas that have gone mostly to Indians hired by US employers from US universities or from India.
People from India have been major beneficiaries of Green Cards in recent years. A Pew research center study said of the nearly 1 million Green Cards issued in 2017, 126,000 went to applicants from India; followed by Mexico, China and Cuba.