AILA had a call with senior administration officials to discuss upcoming rules as described in the recent EO.
It sounds like there'll be new restrictions related to Covid-19 (e.g. perhaps requiring Covid-19 negative tests before being allowed in), exemption for medical workers have been narrowed, and H-1B/Asylum/Cancellation of Removal are going to face restrictions.
https://www.aila.org/infonet/transcript-of-white-house-background-press-call
Key points (applicable to all):
-
The President has also directed HHS and CDC to identify what will be needed for those coming into the country to avoid bringing COVID-19 with them. So that will be a change you’ll see coming from HHS and CDC.
-
I would note that the exemptions from the April 22nd proclamation still stand, but the medical exemption has been narrowed dramatically to only those coming into work on COVID care or COVID research. And if you look back at the April proclamation, that was any medical worker coming in.
-
[The President] has directed DHS to eliminate work permits for those who have final orders of removal or who commit crimes in the United States or who are deportable here in the United States. That category alone is in excess of 50,000 jobs a year that will be opened up for Americans.
Key points (employment):
-
The President has instructed us to get rid of the [H-1B] lottery and replace it with ranking the salaries -- so the top 85 [thousand] salary offers among the 225,000 or so applicants for those visas will get those visas.
-
The President has also instructed us to close the loopholes that have allowed employers to, essentially, domestically outsource their labor by replacing American workers with low-cost foreign labor. And the way this loophole worked was the analysis of whether an incoming immigrant worker would displace an American worker was done at the company hiring the immigrant. The President has instructed us to end that practice and will do so by regulation as soon as we possibly can.
-
The Department of Labor has also been instructed by the President to change the prevailing wage calculation and clean it up, with respect to H-1B wages. The Department of Labor is going to fix all that, with the idea of setting the prevailing wage floor at the 50th percentile so these people will be in the upper end of earnings.
-
The Secretary of Labor is also going to commence using his statutory authority to investigate abuses in the H1B states. While this statutory authority has existed, I do not believe that any Secretary of Labor, prior to Secretary Scalia, has ever sought to use it. And the President has directed him to do that. He’s enthusiastic to commence that.
[link] [comments]
source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/hg7tkm/upcoming_agency_rules_to_implement_executive/
