Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order that he said was meant to protect American workers. I will be signing a buy American and Higher American executive order. You haven't heard about that in a long time in this country. With this action, we are sending a powerful signal to the world. We're going to defend our workers, protect our jobs,
and finally put America first. The order takes him at two specific areas, federal government requirements to purchase American goods and services, which the order aims to enforce, and the H one B VISA Program for Temporary employment of foreign workers with highly specialized knowledge, a visa program that's relied on by Silicon Valley tech companies and technology outsourcing firms. The President says the order is meant to end abuses of the VISA program that allow companies to replace American
workers with foreign workers for less pay. Here to talk with us about the possible impact of President Trump's executive order are David beerd immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, and Angelo Paparelli, a partner at Sayforth Shaw Angelo. What reforms do we know that from this order that there the Trump administration
is going to undertake to change the visa program. Well, the the order really it does not involve any immediate action or any media deadline, and it appears that these are aspirational instructions rather than hardened fast changes. There are two sets of instructions in the order. One deals with UH suggesting new UH rules and policy guidance that would
supersede or revise previous rules and guidance. Well, UH, that triggers a very complicated, time consumed process under the Administrative Procedure Act, where rules are proposed and the Office of Management and Budget UH screens the rule, circulates copies to multiple federal agencies and departments, and then gets feedback while the while the members of the public and the stakeholder
community have an opportunity to talk about it. There's no deadline set for this, and I think that's wise since it's almost impossible to predict how long that will go. But the second one is interesting because it introduces a concept that we should accord these visas to individuals who are among the highest paid and the most skilled in in the particular field. UH. That is not allowed in the law at present. UH, and the Congress would have to act to bring that about. It would also involve
a rather gargantuan task, much harder than a lottery. In a lottery, it's just a random draw. But in trying to filter through UH. The this time, it was about two hundred and thirty three thousand H petitions submitted for eighty five thousand lucky UH recipients who are selected to try to filter through two hundred and thirty thousand, divided by industry and occupation, and then come up with a method of determining a comparison as to which are the
most highest skilled and highest paid. That that's a not an easy task for an agency not known to be nimble. David Trump said the visa program has driven down wages for Americans. Is that true when only eighty five thousand, h one B visas are available each year? Well, no,
it's not true. UM. If you look at the industry over all, what you see is that these foreign immigrant workers who come in end up taking certain types of jobs, and UH native born workers have responded to that by moving into managerial positions and moving up the pay scale. And so there has been a shifting in the industry over the past decade or so. But you're not seeing this kind of horror stories of displacement and unemployment and
declining wages. In fact, h wages in the largest fields UM that H one vs go to, the most common H one B occupations have actually increased. Well. Uh, wages in other sectors of the economy have gone down. And so it's really a very selective reading of the information that he has received, uh, in order to come to
this conclusion. And if you actually look at when these H one b s are coming and when companies are demanding H one bees, it's overwhelmingly at times when the unemployment rate in these industries, these these tech computer and mathematics jobs are very the unemployment rate is very very low, and and it's very very low right now. And so it's just not true that you're seeing this kind of
displacement and replacement um overall in the industry. Uh. There's there have been a few cases, but uh, not the general trend that he's trying to create. Angelo. We have about thirty seconds. But is there a feeling in the industries that use these visas that there's a need to change the program. Well, there's a tremendous need to eliminate the cap which is artificial and which not has not
changed meaningfully since Uh. The number of workers where positions are in short supply, UM, excuse me, where workers are in short supply in terms of the positions is very disproportionate. UH. Recently, the San Diego Union Tribune said that, UM, there are eighty thousand dollar jobs available that go begging for applicants, UH in cybersecurity, and UH that uh these are are
our jobs that are Angela. Let me ask you to hold that the President Trump yesterday signed an executive order that requires the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Homeland Security to suggest reforms to help ensure that H one B visas, which are for foreign workers with highly specialized knowledge, are only awarded to the most highly skilled or highest paid workers.
The President says that this the changing the H one B visa program would protect American workers and end abuses in the program. We are talking about the President's order with David Beer, an immigration policy analysts at the Cato Institute,
and Angelo Paparelli, a partner at say Fur Show. Angelo, we were talking about, um, what actually is needed to reform the program, And you suggested lifting the the number, lifting the cap and having a higher number of visas would actually be a good way to reform the program. But it seems unlikely that that's what President Trump is aiming for here, right, And so is this order really about sort of kind of making a more rational system or is it really about restricting immigration? Well, Uh, we
have to take it in context. Previously, in meeting with leaders from Silicon Valley, Uh, he seemed to be open to their concerns as well. Uh, We've had higher numbers in the past. Uh, and usually it was a trade off stricter regulation for higher numbers, and I think that
would be the way to go. At one point we had a hundred ninety thousand and up to more than two hundred thousand numbers as as opposed to what we have now eight thousand and So, David, will Silicon Valley be benefiting from this or is this purely a lottery
system so you don't see who benefits? Well, Look, the lottery is bad for many of the big tech companies like Google and Microsoft, who actually pay their workers far more than they're required to under the law, and what ends up happening is that in the lottery system you have these I T staffing companies that submit thousands upon thousands of applications, and so then they win the lottery because they have the most raffle tickets, not because they
have the greatest need or are going to pay the worker. They're they're going to bring over the most money. And so there are companies who would actually benefit um from you know, raising the minimum wage for H one B or that type of thing, but all of those types of regulations are really unnecessary. What we have in the H one B market is this uh sort of fraudulent government created problem, which is that the workers are stuck
with a single employer. If the worker can leave his employer at any time and go get paid, uh for you know, forty dollars more at another tech company, then he'll do that if he has access to the market. The only way a company can get away with paying below market wages is if the worker doesn't have access to the market. And so the real reform that that President Trump could actually do here is make it easy
for workers to leave an employer that underpays them. Angelo Given that so many of these visas are given to workers who end up at companies that are really outsourcing firms. They they do contracting work for other companies in technology and fields like that, UM, and that. You know, that's why the Silicon Valley companies aren't getting all of the visas.
Is it actually a good thing to sort of figure out a way to restrict their ability to get these visas those companies, well, I take issue with what David said calling them staffing companies. These are really business process and I t consulting firms that introduce much needed innovations in the way American businesses operate and make them more
globally competitive. I think a promising bill would be to start with what Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from Silicon Valley, has proposed, which would allocate a certain number of the visas. If we have to stay with a cap too smaller employers that will not be filing many many. But I think it's misleading, uh, to to point the blame at consulting firms. They're not really staff augmentation firms. Uh. They're
much more sophisticated than that. And when Americans want to say we've had enough technology, then I think, uh, we can perhaps reduce the H one B, but no one has an appetite for that. Uh do you want to give us a thirty second response to that? David? You know, I think we're just talking about semantics. I don't disagree
with anything that Angela just said. UM. Ultimately, you know, these companies provide a valuable um, you know, asset to the firms that are that they are supporting, and so there's no reason to prevent them from UM accessing the H one B. We need more H one b s. But my point was that some of these large companies
who pay workers more would ultimately benefit. Uh if the you know, the minimum wage was raised or other things were done to restrict access to the H one bree Well, we're out of time now, so our thanks to David Beer of the Cato Institute and Angela Paparelli, a partner at Safe Firth sherff Ford, talking about immigration policy and the President's order on UM on the H one B visa program, which was issued yesterday