Amid the Coronavirus outbreak, being the worst affected nation with more than 40,000 fatalities, United States has decided to temporarily suspend immigration into the country, to curb the spread of COVID-19.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter and said, “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”
In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020
In America, the number of positive cases of Coronavirus is more than more than 750,000, while the people who died due to COVID-19 has reached 42,094, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Details of the Trump’s executive order were not immediately known. He also did not indicate when he will sign such an order.
Meanwhile,the H-1B visa, which is more popular among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa. But his reasoning that he needs to protect jobs of American citizens indicates that non-immigrant work visas too might be on his target. As of now US has decided to suspend immigration visa only.
Due to coronavirus, the US has experienced a record layoff. As off last week, a record number of 22 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits.
The US administration has already closed the Northern and Southern border that attracts a large number of illegal immigrants. Travel restrictions and closing of consulate services in many countries including India are already having an impact on issuing of new H-1B visas.
Due to Coronavirus pandemic, last month, the Trump administration suspended all routine visa services around the world.
More than 2.4 million people have been infected with the virus and over 165,000 killed so far world over, due to the Coronavirus outbreak.