Trump's crackdown on foreign students and workers

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Kimberly Adams (0:31)

The Trump administration cracks down on foreign workers and foreign students.

From Marketplace in Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams. The Trump administration announced yesterday it will no longer allow Microsoft, Adobe and a handful of other companies to sponsor foreign workers for green cards, at least for now. The administration is accusing them of abusing the system and hiring foreign workers instead of American ones. Here's Vice President JD Vance speaking at a press conference yesterday.

JD Vance (1:01)

Our message to Microsoft and to any other foreign or domestic corporation is quite simple. We obviously want you to thrive in the United States of America. We want people to invest in the United States of America, particularly the American technology sector. We are the biggest boosters of your industry. We want you to continue to grow and to employ a lot of people, but we want you to employ American workers. And so our message to Microsoft is, you're a great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers.

Kimberly Adams (1:28)

The Trump administration also announced an investigation into nine universities accusing them of abusing the J-1 temporary student visa program. This all follows a new rule the Department of Homeland Security proposed earlier this week that would raise the fee for international students who want to stay in the US and work temporarily after graduation through the optional practical training program. The fee for that program is $500 right now. The administration wants to raise it to $70,000.

Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more.

Samantha Fields (2:01)

More than half of international students stay in work after they graduate through the optional practical training program.

Julia Gillatt (2:07)

It's a really important bridge for international student graduates who want to stay in work in the United States.

Samantha Fields (2:13)

Julia Gillatt at the Migration Policy Institute says OPT allows them to extend their student visa and work for a year or up to three if they're in science or tech and build relationships with potential employers.

Julia Gillatt (2:26)

US employers like to hire people that they know and like, especially if they're going to pay to sponsor somebody for a visa.

Samantha Fields (2:33)

Under the proposed rule, Clay Harmon at AERCE, the Association of International Enrollment Management, says universities would have to pay $70,000 per student for OPT.

Clay Harmon (2:44)

I imagine there would only be very few institutions who could even remotely entertain the notion of being able to cover that cost.

Samantha Fields (2:55)

The option to stay and work after graduation is a big draw for a lot of international students.

Clay Harmon (3:01)

It tends to be a major factor in the sort of individual ROI calculations that a lot of students do about whether the cost of a US degree ends up being worth it in the end for them.

Samantha Fields (3:15)

If OPT becomes hard to get, he says it's likely fewer students would choose to study in the US. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

Kimberly Adams (4:04)

If you can't beat them, eat them. That's the rallying cry behind a small business in northern Minnesota that harvests and sells to people in restaurants an invasive species of crayfish, or crawfish, or crawdads, depending on where you're from.

As Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Crocker reports, it's a way to both help local lakes and make a little cash.

Dan Crocker (4:25)

Yousef Oris steers his small boat across Caribou Lake, lined by rocks and pine trees. He pulls into a bay, kills the motor, and pulls up a trap.

Yousef Oris (4:34)

Ooh, this is a pretty full basket.

This is probably a solid pound of crayfish right here. That's a meal for someone.

Dan Crocker (4:41)

He dumps them in a big blue bucket and then pulls up the next several traps. They're all full of skittering crayfish, up to five inches long. After pulling just 20 traps, he estimates he's harvested about 14 pounds of crayfish.

Yousef Oris (4:54)

It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun. This isn't a bad office if you look around, especially on a day like today when the water is flat and beautiful.