A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Trump likely overstepped his powers when he tried to ban most foreign guest-workers from entering the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic, and ordered the administration to start issuing visas again.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White said Mr. Trump’s ban “completely disregards … economic reality” by leaving businesses that have to have foreign workers in the lurch.
“Without any consideration of the impact on American firms and their business planning, the Proclamation abruptly changed the scope of immigration policy in the United States,” wrote Judge White, a George W. Bush appointee to a federal court in California.
The decision is a severe blow to the president’s immigration plans.
He had imposed a general ban on both newly arriving immigrants and most guest workers, saying he didn’t want them competing with Americans who are looking for work as the pandemic eases and the country reopens.
Judge White said Mr. Trump bungled both the law and the economics.
He said the areas of highest unemployment are service-related jobs, which aren’t being taken by the guest-workers. The largest number of guest-workers affected by the ban, meanwhile, are high-skilled tech workers.
“These jobs are simply not fungible,” he wrote.
He also said the U.S. immigration system has checks in place, with the Labor Department required to certify there are no workers already in the U.S. willing to take the jobs before they can be opened to foreign guest-workers.
He ruled in favor of a wide array of business interests, who’d sued to stop Mr. Trump’s June proclamation. The businesses argued that bringing in the foreign workers was actually essential to the U.S. economy, and without them the companies would suffer, and so would their American owners and employees.
Mr. Trump’s order applied to visas for workers looking to transfer inside a company from another country to the U.S.; to H-1B visas, which go to skilled workers, usually in fields like computer programming; to seasonal non-farm guest-workers, such as those who staff resorts or do landscaping; and work-study programs.
Judge White issued a preliminary injunction ordering Homeland Security and the State Department to re-start processing those visas.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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