Immigration lawyer explains consequences of terrible policies- Echo op-ed

Donald Trump is the son of a Scottish immigrant. 

Mary Anne MacLeod Trump (1912-2000) is the mother of Donald Trump. She was a Scottish immigrant

Mary Anne MacLeod Trump was born in Scotland. 

In memory of his mother, Donald Trump should be completely compassionate toward all immigrants. Donald Trump's two out of three wives are also immigrants. In other words, Donald Trump's children are the progeny of immigrants. Therefore, the Trump administration's adversarial relationship with immigrants is cruel and makes no practical sense. 

In fact, the draconian immigration and deportation policies being enforced by US immigration are preventing badly needed labor and creative talent from entering America. 

There's no doubt that America will ultimately pay a cost for the Trump immigration policy. This opinion is an echo from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

America is not first in welcoming talent anymore

The Trump administration already is building walls to keep out immigrants — immigrants who could help build our country ~ opinion by Robert S. Whitehill

Robert S. Whitehill is an attorney based in Pittsburgh who chairs the Immigration Group of Fox Rothschild LLP, a national law firm (rwhitehill@foxrothschild.com).
What a way to start a new year.

President Donald Trump is building walls. There’s a travel ban on people entering the United States from certain countries. Temporary Protected Status is being withdrawn for Haitians, Sudanese and Nicaraguans. U.S. admissions of refugees are at record lows, notwithstanding a record high number of refugees worldwide.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has been withdrawn for hundreds of thousands of young people whose only infraction has been entering the country as children, usually brought by their parents, without inspection or proper papers.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is exercising little prosecutorial discretion and going after even those who have committed trivial violations of immigration or criminal law. Immigration judges are being pushed by the Department of Justice to move cases through in assembly-line fashion.

U.S. and Indian media outlets are reporting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering measures that could send back to India (and elsewhere) a half-million tech workers.

Let’s be frank. The United States is not the welcoming place it once was, and some people are just not coming anymore. Businesses are leaving the country or setting up operations elsewhere so they can hire and retain the professional talent they need without the frustration and expense of trying to climb over the Trump administration’s obstacles.

The number of foreign students in the United States has fallen by about 7 percent year over year. Fewer foreign students translate into fewer educated, globally attuned potential employees. There also are thousands of foreign nationals graduating each year who then cannot stay in the country even when have both a degree and a job offer. The wall blocking H-1B visas — time-limited work or study permits — keeps rising higher.

To qualify for an H-1B visa, a foreign national must be offered a position requiring at least a bachelor’s degree. The person must be fully qualified and credentialed. The employer must offer and be able to pay the prevailing wage, as determined by the Department of Labor.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has made a concerted and successful effort to make entry-level H-1B’s more difficult to obtain. 

For example, one of my clients, a major university, was seeking an H-1B visa for a post-doctoral fellow. 

USCIS required the university to provide evidence that a position requiring a doctorate also required at least a bachelor’s degree. (!)

That seemed laughable, but it cost the university time, money and frustration. There are many such examples, as approximately 40 percent of the fiscal-year-2018 H-1B petitions have been subjected to requests for evidence — some serious, some frivolous.

Moreover, USCIS has announced that it no longer will recognize previously adjudicated judgments regarding extension petitions for H-1B and other types of visas. This means many more requests for evidence can be expected, translating into time and money spent and work undone.

Because of all this, there is greater reluctance to engage or continue to engage foreign nationals in positions requiring college degrees, even when no Americans qualify or are willing to take them. America will not benefit from much-needed workers, including highly educated aliens with extraordinary abilities and executives, managers, entrepreneurs and others with specialized experience. Even multinational firms are having a harder time transferring workers into the country.

USCIS also has greatly increased the frequency of fraud-detection audits to make sure that foreign nationals lucky enough to have obtained visas are doing the work identified in their approved applications. It now requires in-person interviews of virtually everyone seeking permanent residency in the United States. Fraud detection is fine, but USCIS hasn’t increased its staff to handle this work. This adds to the already-long processing times, which, in turn, further discourages companies from hiring foreign nationals and foreign nationals from staying.

The Trump administration is seeking to sharply reduce not only illegal but also legal immigration and to revoke Obama administration policies. Almost every step it takes in this direction results in vigorously contested lawsuits fought to protect the rights of immigrants.

When DHS sought to delay implementation of International Entrepreneur Rule (IER) — which permits foreign entrepreneurs to invest in enterprises in the United States and employ U.S. workers — a request for an injunction was filed in federal court. The judge ordered DHS to get the program moving as required by federal regulation. As it begrudgingly did so last month, DHS stated that, while it “complies with the court order and implements the IER parole program, DHS is also in the final stages of publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking seeking to remove the IER. “

Mr. Trump might be having no luck getting congressional approval to build his physical wall along the Mexican border, but his administration is building plenty of less-visible walls to keep out immigrants — particularly immigrants who could and do contribute to America’s strength and vitality. These construction projects are being countered by legal action and advocacy, decision by decision. Unfortunately, this unceasing battle is making our country less attractive to many of the world’s best and brightest, whose energy and talents are welcome elsewhere.

(MaineWriter~ it's just  matter of time, ultimately, the US will pay for this terrible and exclusionary immigration policy.)