Advocates for U.S. workers claim that White House officials are discreetly undermining a lesser-known regulation designed to protect American graduates from international migrants who come to the U.S. on temporary visas to occupy and maintain jobs. According to Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers, this move could have severe repercussions for American professionals.
The proposed amendments to the “Schedule A” regulation, as explained to Truth Voices by Lynn, will not increase the overall number of legal migrants annually. However, they will allow firms to employ foreign graduates long after their temporary visas expire, thereby increasing the replacement of American graduates. Lynn warned, “All professional white-collar American workers could be displaced by these international migrants. The existing barriers that prevent these foreign graduates from flying into America and replacing American workers would vanish if this new rule comes into effect.”
Business proponents argue that changing these regulations will enable companies to fill technology roles more swiftly. According to a statement from FWD.us, an advocacy group for West Coast investors, “The Biden administration should resume regular updates to help qualified immigrants to quickly start working, especially in crucial and emerging industries.”
However, changes to these regulations could potentially reveal the escalating effects of white-collar migration on the prosperity of the middle class. Current policies already permit large employers to bring in at least 1.5 million visa workers for mid-skill, presumably temporary roles under several programs, with an O-1 visa category for high-skill migrants.
This influx, critics argue, is diluting the pool of jobs that once served as vital stepping stones for homegrown American graduates. The foreign workers, while nominally temporary, often manage to extend their stays, maneuver between various visa categories, and in some cases, work illegally beyond their visa terms.
These workers also often press their managers to apply for the 140,000 annual green cards allocated for foreign employees of U.S. firms. Once a green card process is initiated by their employers, these workers can remain in the U.S., further saturating the job market against American graduates.
Visa workers also help to sustain a lower wage structure, decrease workplace resistance to detrimental policies, and inflate short-term corporate stock values, benefiting investors at the expense of the job market for U.S. citizens. The overall scenario has led to many American workplaces being dominated by foreign workers, significantly affecting domestic office dynamics and company cultures.
Advocates for U.S. workers, like Lynn, argue that such expansionary migration policies, particularly under the Biden administration, are systematically dismantling the legal protections historically provided to American workers. The ongoing regulatory changes, including discussions to expand the categories of jobs exempt from labor market testing under “Schedule A” rules, could potentially expose even more American professionals to job displacement by foreign workers.
Despite these concerns, significant policy and legal rewrites continue to move forward with little mainstream media attention or political challenge, focusing instead on the sympathetic aspects of migration. Advocates and affected professionals, therefore, are increasingly urgent in their calls for action to protect American jobs and the broader white-collar workforce from these transformative immigration policies.
