How hiring and retaining foreign-born workers will get harder under a second Trump presidency

With Donald Trump getting ready to return to the Oval Office, many employers are wondering what his second term will mean for their foreign-born employees. 

Immigration has been a major focus for Trump, and during his previous term, he instituted a family separation policy, dramatically cut the number of available green cards, and temporarily suspended H-1B visas. This time around, he says he wants the military to carry out mass deportations. 

Fortune spoke with four immigration attorneys to understand how Trump’s second term will affect foreign-born workers, and companies’ ability to recruit and retain talent. They say that based on his previous term, they anticipate an upcoming spike in H-1B visa denials, a harder road for entry-level workers, and a chilling effect on immigrant talent. And they add that overall, the hiring landscape will get much harder.  

“He’s going to make it more difficult to bring in talent from outside,” immigration attorney Robert Tsigler tells Fortune. He adds a system that was already “complex, difficult, and opaque” is about to “get even worse.”

Although changes to immigration policies will affect all industries, some rely on immigrant workers more than others. For example, in 2019, foreign-born people accounted for almost a quarter of all U.S. employees working in science, technology, engineering, and math fields, according to a 2022 report from the American Immigration Council. 

Trump’s current inner circle and newfound Silicon Valley support could potentially have a softening influence when it comes to the ability for companies to hire white-collar foreign-born workers, according to some experts. Especially considering how much big tech relies on foreign-born workers.

“Some of his close advisors, including Elon Musk, come from businesses where there’s an understanding of the importance of having high-skilled workers that are able to come in and work for U.S. companies,” says Michael Neifach, a managing principal and immigration attorney with the law firm Jackson Lewis. 

But it’s still early days when it comes to predicting how exactly that will manifest when Trump takes office. “It’s hard to say exactly how this is going to play out,” he says.

You can read more about how hiring and retaining foreign-born workers could change under Trump here.

Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com

Today’s edition was curated by Brit Morse.

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