Trump sees the order to stop issuing a work visa to protect American jobs, but corporations consider it a blow to the ability to attract talent.

President Donald Trump on June 22 signed an extension of the decree to stop granting green cards outside the US territory until December 31, 2020 and may continue to enforce them later if necessary and freeze many working visas.

According to the decree, temporary employment visas that are frozen include H-1B visas, which are usually issued for highly skilled workers in technology and their families, and H-2B visas for workers in the industry.

The ordinance also limits the ability of US companies to have overseas branches and vice versa brings employees to the US in the next few months or years.

US officials say the decision to freeze visas and restrict new green card issuance will leave 525,000 foreign workers with no chance to come to the US at least until the end of this year, equivalent to that number of jobs for Americans.

Stephen Miller, Trump's White House aide and Trump's immigration policy planners, has for years been pushing for restrictions or abolition of work visas, arguing that they hurt American job prospects.

However, many American businesses have voiced opposition to the new regulation, arguing that it prevents them from recruiting foreign workers for many jobs that Americans do not want or cannot do.

"This is a direct attack on America's innovation ability and the opportunity to benefit from attracting global talent," said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a group of pro-immigrant advocacy groups with many technology companies.

"Failure to welcome engineers, directors, IT professionals, doctors, nurses or other workers does not help, but rather pulls the United States back. Immigration restrictions will inadvertently push activities.

Trump administration officials say the Presidential decree will not affect non-US residents with a valid visa or seasonal agricultural labor.

Trump affirmed that stopping the issuance of work visas is a way to secure jobs for Americans.

The effort to restrict immigration to the US is one of the main commitments in Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 and certainly plays a central role to attract voters in this year's race.

In April, Trump signed an order to stop issuing a green card for 60 days to most foreigners who want to live in the United States.

Therefore, the decree signed on June 22, in addition to extending the order to stop granting green cards, also targets many types of labor visas, a move that is supposed to satisfy anti-immigrant Americans in the United States.

The immigration restriction group welcomed the new regulation.

"I am really excited to see the President support stopping these visa programs," said Vaughan, who said he was regularly consulted by the White House aide on the issue.

Trump is also believed to be directing his administration to change indefinitely a series of immigration rules to prevent foreigners from competing unfair jobs with Americans.

In addition, the changes are intended to prevent immigrants from applying for asylum to be granted a work permit in the United States while they wait for processing.

It is not clear when these changes will take effect.

But many experts say the Trump administration may stumble over legal barriers from protesters when it comes to speeding up the process.

"The government may try to speed up the process of making foreign labor laws without public opinion, but it is difficult to bypass the court," said Lynden Melmed, immigration lawyer and former head of the legal department.

The Trump administration used Covid-19 as an excuse to enact a series of policies to change the immigration system, including refugee and green card, according to Michael D. Shear and Miriam Jordan, two editors of NYTimes.

Critics agree with this view, but add that Trump's ultimate goal is to pursue the agenda on immigration and increase the chance to win the second term president.

While Trump and his aides say the ban is only a solution to the pandemic, his administration has been seeking ways to cut many of the legal immigration programs over the years, even if the U.S.

Weeks before Trump announced the new rule, the business and university coalition tried to send letters and phone calls to the White House to narrow the scope of the visa suspension.

"This is the biggest blow to the work visa I've seen in 35 years of working," said Steve Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell University.

However, their efforts were unsuccessful at Trump's determination.