By Andrew Kragie

Law360 (May 7, 2020, 9:21 PM EDT) -- Four influential Senate Republicans on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to broaden and extend his actions to limit immigration during the coronavirus pandemic, seeking a long-term suspension of guest worker visas and EB-5 immigrant investor visas.

Citing a desire to reserve jobs for Americans during the pandemic-induced economic crisis, the group called for the administration to suspend all nonimmigrant guest worker visas for 60 days except in "time-sensitive industries such as agriculture," with some categories stopped for at least a year or preferably "until unemployment has returned to normal levels."

The targeted visas include H-2B nonagricultural seasonal workers, H1-B specialty occupation workers and graduates in the Optional Practical Training program. They also want the immigrant investor program dropped "until real reforms are adopted," calling it a "pay-for-citizenship scheme in many cases."

The Republicans who signed the letter are Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Josh Hawley of Missouri. The latter three sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over immigration law. Grassley chairs the Finance Committee and previously led the Judiciary Committee. Cruz and Cotton are leading conservatives, while Trump has praised the freshman Hawley as a rising star.

The group praised Trump's April 22 executive order putting limits on green card seekers but called for restrictions on guest workers, a move that many business groups oppose.

"While economic shutdowns in states and localities across the country have been necessary to reduce the spread of this pandemic, the results have been devastating for businesses and workers alike," the senators told the president. "The United States admits more than one million nonimmigrant guest workers every year, and there is no reason to admit most such workers when our unemployment is so high. ... Given the extreme lack of available jobs for American job-seekers as portions of our economy begin to reopen, it defies common sense to admit additional foreign guest workers to compete for such limited employment."

The senators said that millions of high school graduates and college students should "have access to seasonal, nonagricultural work such as summer resort employment or landscaping before those positions are given to imported foreign labor under the H-2B program."

Guest worker programs already require employers to certify that they cannot find American residents to do the work. Business advocates say entire industries cannot function without guest workers, from seasonal hospitality to fisheries.

The senators want H1-B visas stopped because "there is no reason why unemployed Americans and recent college graduates should have to compete in such a limited job market against an influx of additional H-1B workers, most of whom work in business, technology or STEM fields."

They argued for suspending the Optional Practical Training program, which allows recent university graduates to stay up to three years to get job experience, because "there is certainly no reason to allow foreign students to stay for three additional years just to take jobs that would otherwise go to unemployed Americans as our economy recovers."

Democrats say Trump and advisers like Stephen Miller have used COVID-19 as a tenuous justification for restrictionist policies they've long wanted. Immigrant advocates have argued that new arrivals spur growth, accounting for a disproportionate share of inventions and new businesses.

"There are zero public health experts and zero economists who will say that slashing immigration and eliminating non-immigrant visas like those for biomedical researchers is a good idea," Todd Schulte, president of pro-immigration group FWD.US, said in a statement on Thursday. "No matter the time or situation, when the proposal is always 'slash legal immigration,' everyone knows what this is really about."

The Trump administration already has imposed several immigration restrictions during the pandemic, saying they are needed to protect public health and a comatose economy.

After vowing to suspend all immigration, the president signed a narrow executive order two weeks ago temporarily barring foreigners seeking green cards from coming to the country, saying it would protect jobs for Americans.

The White House said the ban does not apply to spouses and minor children of American citizens, as well as foreign investors, health care workers and people with already approved green cards. An Oregon federal judge last week refused to block the policy with a temporary restraining order.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security last month halted plans for an additional 35,000 H-2B visas that businesses and members of Congress had sought.

In mid-March, as the virus began to spread more widely in the U.S., the administration said public health required turning away migrants and asylum-seekers at the southwest border and sending back anyone who arrives in the country without proper travel documentation.

--Additional reporting by Suzanne Monyak. Editing by Nicole Bleier.

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