Thread by @SarahPierceEsq

Like so many of the President's orders on immigration, yesterday's new executive order didn't change anything immediately.

BUT this one provision is hinting at some changes on H-1B visas that have been a long time coming.

Before the President even took office, there were a rash of high profile cases in which U.S. companies laid off their IT staff of U.S. nationals, outsourced the work to foreign companies, & those foreign companies brought in H-1B workers to do the job.

The laid off workers frequently had to train their foreign replacements.

@JuliaPrestonNow did a brilliant job reporting on the trend.

nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/…

nytimes.com/2015/06/12/us/…

nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/…

nytimes.com/2015/09/30/us/…

Even though there are laws and regulations in place to make sure U.S. nationals aren't replaced by H-1B workers, judges have ruled these only apply if both groups are employed by the same company.

Because this model involves two employers, it's legal & continues today.

This issue was completely in line with President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign messaging on immigration, and sure enough he took up the issue, even featuring laid off workers at his rallies: computerworld.com/article/303921…

Once in office, his administration skirted around the issue a bit, increasing scrutiny of H-1B visas, especially for employers placing their workers at third-party sites (which they notably recently had to walk back), but not addressing the issue head on.

forbes.com/sites/stuartan…

But it was clear the issue was on their minds.

For one, the first @USCIS director under Trump (Francis Cissna) made his first public appearance with @4US_Workers-- an attorney & vocal advocate for U.S. workers laid off & replaced by foreign workers

https://twitter.com/4us_workers/status/933042122437136384?lang=en

& for years they've been working on a regulation that would (among other things) revise the definition of H-1B employer-- likely extending those legal obligations both to the immediate & secondary employers.

reginfo.gov/public/do/eAge…

This brings us to yesterday's executive order.

The president gave @USDOL & @DHSgov 45 days to take action to ensure secondary employers follow U.S. laws to protect U.S. workers.

A super tight timeline for an issue we've been struggling with for years.

It seems more likely that regulation is finally ready & this was a way to advertise/preview it.

And, indeed, look who was there for the signing:

https://twitter.com/4US_Workers/status/1290389963171934208

So, is this good or bad? Eh.

It is good to protect U.S. workers. We don't want to fuel a program that puts people out of work.

But during the 30 years since the H-1B's formation, an entire industry has been built around using it to fulfill a market need, even if imperfectly.

Among other things, Y2K accelerated a larger IT industry trend towards a flexible, project-based labor force, incentivizing employers to outsource their IT work & encouraging vendors to seek out an adaptable labor force.

Because H-1B workers can't be hired as contractors, a whole new industry was born.

But we don't know that much about it. Who are these U.S. companies? How prevalent is their use of this contract workforce? What would be the results of cutting it off?

Like with so many things in immigration, we are using an unconscionably outdated system, are mad about the unintended effects, and are taking a hacksaw to those effects without regard to the underlying problem or the new potential unintended effects of our rash actions.