New Executive Order On Work Visas Could Impact Cape Cod Businesses
BOSTON (CBS) - A new Executive Order signed by President Trump restricting visas for temporary foreign workers may hurt some Cape Cod restaurants.
President Trump signed the order arguing it will protect American jobs in an economy in turmoil from the coronavirus pandemic.
The order restricts new L-1 visas for intracompany transfers, H-1Bs for workers in specialty occupations as well as the H-4 visa for spouses, H-2Bs for temporary non-agricultural workers and most J-1 visas for exchange visitors until the end of the year.
"It hurts everybody in my field," said Guillermo Yingling, the part-owner of Bubula's restaurant in Provincetown and several other Cape Cod restaurants.
Yingling says his industry relies heavily on immigrant workers because it is difficult to find Americans interested in some restaurant jobs.
"There's nobody competing for these jobs. It's actually the opposite. We are competing for a very finite number of people who are here and willing to work," Yingling said. "How they did unemployment makes it so that a lot of people don't want to go back to work either, even if they are here and able."
Maya Nasr, a doctoral student at MIT working on NASA's next Mars Rover, worries that the executive order will also impact students who will be unable to get H-1B visas after they complete a program called Optional Practical Training through their student visas.
"It's definitely been really stressful," she said, "I always saw my dream as being here. I always wanted to be an astronaut and study aerospace engineering."
