Trump immigration orders could deprive local high-tech companies of foreign workers

Redmond-based Microsoft alone has more than 5,000 foreign workers allowed in this country on H1-B visas because of their specialized talent and skills. That’s according to documents filed in the Washington attorney general’s lawsuit to block the Trump administration’s travel ban. Attorney general’s brief says Amazon, Expedia and Starbucks employ thousands more.

“There are plenty of studies that show that companies started by foreign nationals, companies that hire foreign nationals tend to be the most successful and hire the most U.S. workers,” said Seattle immigration attorney Davis Bae.

Bae has seen a draft of Trump administration plans for sharp limits on such visas.

“There's going to be a problem with talent” for local companies, Bae said.

And he believes local jobs will be at risk.

“I do think that what we'll see is companies will look at the geography and say, 'If we don't have the talent here, we need to have the talent work somewhere,' and that could result in unfortunately the wrong direction in terms of jobs -- it could actually cause export of jobs.”

Today President Trump was focused on the judges of the 9th's Circuit Court of Appeals. And he didn't like the challenging questions he heard during yesterday's hearing on whether to allow the travel ban to resume.

“I don't ever want to call a court biased, so I won't call it biased and we haven't had a decision yet, but courts seem to be so political,” the president said.

Davis Bae has helped 15,000 people come to this country over two decades. Here’s how he responded when asked about the state's chances of winning this round in court.

“I think that it will fall mostly likely 2-1 in favor of the state. And then I think it will go up to the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court may not want to hear the case.”

If that happens, the decision of the appeals court will stand for the entire nation.

Cox Media Group