Analysis: Less than 10 Percent of Immigration Affected by Trump Order

Less than ten percent of the total number of green cards rewarded annually to foreign nationals will be affected by President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily pausing a sliver of legal immigration to the United States.

On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order pausing employment-based and extended family green card categories for 60 days. {snip}

Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) Director of Research Matt O’Brien told Breitbart News in a statement that Trump’s order will likely only slow about 5,000 to 80,000 green card applications — less than ten percent of the roughly 1.2 million green cards that are given to foreign nationals every year.

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During a segment on Wednesday, [Tucker] Carlson said Trump’s original draft of the executive order “would have suspended several guest worker programs, the ones that prevent qualified Americans from getting jobs” but that the draft was later gutted down to only include a small group of employment-based and extended family green card applicants who are not yet in the U.S.

“Every year, 180,000 new H-1B visas are awarded, and more than 200,000 are extended for a longer period. These are not for people picking grapes or lettuce. These are for people making good wages in white-collar jobs,” Carlson said. “Currently, there are about 470,000 active beneficiaries of this program … suspending that program for a year would open up a massive number of jobs at a time when we desperately need them because we have so many unemployed more than ever.”

“The final version … does not restrict any foreign workers at all,” Carlson said. “All of them are free to keep coming here and taking American jobs, including high-paying American jobs.”

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