What Trump’s New Immigration Order Means for India

On Wednesday, April 22, American President Donald Trump passed a swift order that altered US immigration policy amidst a coronavirus lockdown. While the order doesn’t affect people who have already acquired green cards to live in the US, it effectively declares that people living overseas who migrate for education and opportunities in specialised industries like IT may no longer be able to live or work in America.

Fuelled by what immigration groups are calling ‘protectionist impulses’, Trump passed this order after declaring in a tweet that the need of the hour was to protect the American workforce threatened by unemployment, homelessness and an overall economic slowdown as a result of the coronavirus.

While the order currently pauses immigration for 60 days, experts are concerned that this period could be extended in keeping with Trump’s vociferous anti-immigration rhetoric. To be clear, the president's order only applies to foreign nationals seeking residency in the US, and will not affect those who already have permanent green cards or temporary travel permits for tourism and business. It also exempts individuals seeking to permanently enter the country as medical professionals or researchers, as well as members of the armed forces, those seeking asylum or refugee status, people married to American citizens and their children. This new order mainly targets what Trump likes to call ‘chain migration’, in which green card holders sponsor visas for their extended families, along with the Diversity Visa Lottery, which issues about 50,000 green cards every year. And while the force of its effects is diluted in the pandemic situation which has shut down consulates, the new order has triggered uncertainty, anxiety and anger for people across the world waiting for their residency and work visas to be approved or renewed. Accounting for almost 80 percent of immigrants in the US, Indians are facing a confusing and challenging change.

Even as Indians are some of the richest and most successful immigrants living in the US, especially in hubs like Silicon Valley, The New York Times reports that many Indians relying on H-1B work visas backed by their companies are facing layoffs and thus risk losing citizenship. Meanwhile, Trump remains adamantly against reviewing this policy and instead says it could be extended based on economic conditions in the coming months, shrugging off studies that reveal the positive impact of immigrant workforces in the US. This means that the Indians who were already finding it difficult to get US visas due to the cutthroat competitiveness of immigration procedures may now find it impossible to look for opportunities in America. According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that approves and facilitates visas, 227,000 Indian nationals are still waiting to get a family-sponsored Green Card, most of whom have already waited for years in the US. With this new order, their permanent residency status remains unknown.

While this could strain the recently reinforced trade relationship between India and the US, it could even contribute to the rising unemployment, especially in India’s IT sector. However, this will also affect the US economy as it will reduce the number of foreign students who choose to pursue higher education in the US and are a major source of its revenue.

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