May 21, 2020

President Donald J. Trump

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We are writing to you today on behalf of concerned graduating college seniors and young
professionals nationwide. Specifically, we ask you to immediately take action to rescind the
work authorization of hundreds of thousands of foreign, nonimmigrant skilled guest workers in
order to ease the economic suffering of American college students and recent graduates looking
for meaningful employment in these trying times.

Mr. President, the coronavirus crisis has created the worst job market for graduating students
since the Great Depression. Unemployment stood at 14.7 percent in April, up 11.1 percentage
points since the second semester at most universities and colleges began in January. The millions
of graduating seniors face long odds to secure meaningful employment, even in white-collar
jobs.

Made worse by the coronavirus economic crisis are the hundreds of thousands of nonimmigrant
guest workers in the United States. These guest workers - and especially those in the OPT and H-
1B programs - take jobs temporarily at wages far below the average for their positions. This is
because employers can easily pay these guest workers less than they pay Americans. This is not
right.

The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign students to work temporarily in
the United States after they graduate from American universities. Incredibly, employers who hire
these OPT students do not pay any payroll taxes on them. This means that a company such as
Amazon or AT&T can hire a full-time worker for significantly less than an American.
Importantly, this program is not congressionally mandated. The George W. Bush administration
created it and the Obama administration continued its existence. Mr. President, you could direct
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to end this program today. You would save
thousands of jobs with this simple act.

The H-1B program is one of the biggest threats to American college graduates today. We pay
thousands of dollars for degrees in STEM, business, and other disciplines. Yet when we
graduate, we see that large corporations increasingly utilize foreign guest workers present in the
U.S. on the H-1B visa. Supporters of this program tout that these workers are exceptionally
skilled foreigners at the height of their fields. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
These workers are not particularly skilled at all - they are just cheap. Corporations abuse the H-
1B visa because it is cheaper to temporarily hire a foreigner than it is to hire an American
graduate full-time. Guest workers are completely dependent on their employers for their work
authorization and legal status. Guest workers labor essentially as modern indentured servants to
their company. How can American graduates expect to compete with such a system?

Mr. President, in addition to ending the Bush-Obama OPT program, we strongly urge you to
suspend the H-1B program. Millions of Americans are unemployed. Many of us will graduate
with uncertain futures. The number of available jobs continues to shrink by the day. It is
unconscionable that a single qualified American graduate should go without a job while scores of
foreign, temporary guest workers continue to work in this country.

You can make this right by ending the OPT program and suspending the H-1B program.
Suspending all guest worker programs is ideal, but the OPT and H-1B schemes are especially
egregious. We look forward to seeing what you do to help America’s college students and recent
graduates.

Sincerely,

College Republicans at San Diego State College Republicans at East Carolina

University
College Republicans at Sacramento State
University
College Republicans at Humboldt State
University
College Republicans at Santa Clara
University
College Republicans at UC Irvine
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University
College Republicans at University of
Washington
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University
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Sequoias
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University
College Republicans United at Arizona State
University
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University
Bruin Republicans at UCLA
Young Republicans of New York State
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New York Federation of College
Republicans
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America First at UCLA America First at Westfield State University