President Donald Trump has signed the much-rumored executive order to freeze temporary work visas till the end of this year. Although this news has spread like wildfire across the actual impact it will have on immigration may be far less than expected.
The controversial executive order which will be going into effect from Wednesday 24, June 2020, is most likely to be stalled as federal judges may have their say in the matter to prevent the executive order from causing much harm. “ In my opinion, this executive order is just part of the Trump administration’s pre-election campaign and it will surely blow over in a matter of 5-6 weeks,” says PassRigh CEO Liran Rosenfeld.
Rosenfeld, who has been working in the immigration sector for over four years, reveals that this executive order does not entirely close doors for immigrants wanting to relocate to the United States this year. According to him, there are loopholes in the order, for instance, although it covers a broad range of visas including the H1-B visas, H2-B visas, L-1 visas, and J-1 visas and the continued suspension of employment-based immigrant visas are less probable. Since it appears that there is no suspension on actually applying for non-immigrant visa petitions at the USCIS service center in the US. In most cases, there is a quota of 85,000 visas for H1-B visa petitions. Besides, the quota for H2-B visa petitions has not been scraped by the executive order.
“ This executive order is just a facade for election purposes and there is no reason for it to be taken too seriously as it is most likely to blow over in a couple of weeks,” says Rosenfeld while talking about the flawed executive order.
Exemptions to the Visa Ban:
The visa ban does not apply to the following immigrants:
- Those that already have a non-immigrant visa on the date of the proclamation;
- For those applying for the O-1 Visa, E2, OPT, and F1 student visas;
- Those who are already Green Card-holders for the US are not covered by the visa ban;
- Immediate family members of US citizens;
- Those seeking to enter the United States to provide temporary labor or services essential to the United States food supply chain;
- Those who serve US national interests as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their respective designees.
Alternate ways to relocate to the U.S.
As mentioned above the executive ban does not include the followings visas:
E-2 Investor visa
The E-2 visa and E-1 visa schemes are lined to trade agreements with Countries and hence have not been affected by the ban. It should be noted that unless they can obtain another nationality Indian and Chinese nationals and certain other nationals cannot come under the E-2 visa scheme. However, unlike the H-1B visa, there is no cap on the number of people who can apply for this visa.
The O-1 Visa
For the past four years, PassRight has been helping talents across the world relocate on the O-1 visas for people with extraordinary ability or achievement in one of the following areas: science, education, business, or sports, arts: music, theatre, film. “ This is not the first time steps have been taken to curb immigration to the US, but be it in the past or in the present situation the best visa choice foreign talents remains the O-1 Visa and this is why even during the COVID-19 Pandemic we have had clients who have received their O-1 Visas”.
The O-1 Visa has always remained an uncapped and most versatile visa for talented individuals wanting to live and work in the US. Unlike the H-1B Visa it is not capped and nor is there a limit to how many years an applicant can live in the US on an O-1 Visa.
To Find how you too could qualify for the O-1 Visa Contact Us.
