Trump orders ban on foreign workers, Big Sky to see effects

EBS STAFF

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump announced an executive order on June 22 that extends an April order barring most categories of foreign workers and freezing green cards through December. 

The Trump administration said that during a period of sweeping unemployment, the order will protect American jobs.

The order temporarily suspends H-1B visas for foreign workers in specialty occupations as well as seasonal foreign employees, including those working through the J-1 Visa Program, which provides hundreds of employees to the Big Sky community, according to Candace Carr Strauss, CEO of the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce.

“We already battle lack of affordable workforce housing and have 50 percent of our workforce commuting in everyday from the greater Gallatin Valley, so to not be able to leverage that tool of an international workforce to fill the gaps … it will definitely have an impact on Big Sky,” Carr Strauss said.

Officials have estimated that the ban will keep 525,000 foreign workers out of the U.S. for the remainder of 2020.