Clete Samson, a partner in the firm’s Omaha office, was recently quoted in the June 22 ABA Journal article “Biden Reverses Course on Trump’s Immigration Policies – but Will High-Skilled Workers Return?”

The article reports on the Biden administration’s kept promise to reverse many of former President Trump’s immigration policies including ending the Muslim travel ban, reinstituting and strengthening the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and lifting restrictions on H1-B visas. It also explains the ways Trump-era immigration policies changed the pathways to citizenship and labor protections for immigrants.

According to the article, “U.S. companies have always benefited from immigrants and those with nonimmigrants visas.” Key industries in the U. S. rely on immigrants, many of whom have degrees in high-demand STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) occupations. For several years now, those key industries have been hit hard as foreign students are thinking twice about coming to the U.S. because of more restrictive policies.

However, Samson points out that “[t]he country’s immigration problems didn’t start with the last president. For at least the last 25 years, delays, stays, injunctions and targeted executive actions have always impacted the non-immigrant worker population in the United States, as well as the immigration benefits and opportunities that were available to them.”

He continues, “In general, all presidents have used executive orders to impact immigration policy, but the whiplash effect of the most recent changes to our immigration policies will likely create some deterrent to highly skilled workers who fear being caught in limbo as to their long-term immigration status.”

View the full ABA Journal article here.

Clete Samson is a nationally respected crisis response lawyer and focuses his practice in employment law, immigration law, worksite and regulatory compliance, and commercial litigation. Before joining Kutak Rock in 2016, he served the United States for seven years as a federal trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.