Donald Trump bans H-1B technology workers from federal government contracts

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday that bans technology workers on H-1B visas from replacing American citizens in federal government contracts. The order will ensure that Federal agencies prioritise hiring American workers and not people on an H-1B visa.

“We believe jobs must be offered to American workers first,” Donald Trump said in a statement. -

The order mandated all federal agencies to carry out an internal audit to assess whether they are in compliance with the requirement of appointing only US citizens and nationals to competitive service. The Department of Labor will also finalise a guidance to prevent H-1B employers from moving H-1B workers to other employer’s job sites to displace American workers.


Trump’s decision to ban workers on H-1B visas comes after the federally-owned Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) said that it will outsource 20 percent of its technology jobs to companies based in foreign countries. Around 200 American workers were to lose their jobs over the next five years, said the order.

French technology major Capgemini, Accenture and CGI had won the contract from TVA, according to the employees union of TVA.

A Bloomberg analysis of Department of Labor data showed that in the first nine months of fiscal 2019, over 2,000 H-1B visa holders were employed by federal agencies.

The order said that outsourcing IT jobs involving handling sensitive information would also pose a national risk in the current climate of intellectual property theft.

“Outsourcing hundreds of workers is especially detrimental in the middle of a pandemic, which has already cost millions of Americans their jobs,” it said.

Over the last few months, the Trump administration has taken several steps towards protecting American jobs by suspending the H-1B, L-1 and J-1 visas till the end of the year.

Donald Trump, who is facing elections for his second term in November, in June suspended H-1B and L-1 visas that were used by technology workers till December stating that it would help in providing local jobs amidst the economic crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic.