SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — The Trump administration is expected to set limits on a popular program that allows international students to work in the U.S. after graduation.
But according to a recent study, researchers at the University of California San Diego believe this will be detrimental to the economy.
Their findings show immigrants, including students who are allowed to remain, enhance the lives and livelihoods of native-born workers in many ways in terms of innovation, reducing crime and increasing tax revenues.
These students receive H1-B visas allowing them to work in many fields including mathematics, science and engineering.
It’s these visas that are on the chopping block in Washington.
“This time the political restrictions seem to be on high-skill foreign-born, like students, OPTs and those with H1B visas,” said Gaurav Khanna, assistant professor of economics at the UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.
Khanna was one of the researchers involved in the study.
He believes restrictions to the H-1B, the same type of visa the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, used to begin working in the U.S., could be “another roadblock for the legalization of immigrants with entrepreneurial ambition hurting the economy.”
“Unless immigrants are certain they will be allowed to remain within a country, they may not invest in developing a business in that country,” Khanna wrote.
“This highlights a problem faced by many migrants who have ambitions to start businesses but will not because they know they may not be able to stay in the country for long,” he said.
