Will Foreign MBAs Win or Lose With Trump’s H-1B Reforms? Maybe Both
Two largely overlooked sentences in a government proclamation, calling for raising the H-1B program’s wages, could prove to have a big effect.
Photo Illustration: 731; Photos: Getty Images
The first academic quarter at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management had only just begun, but Luca, a first-year MBA student, was already deep into his studies on business strategy, corporate finance and more. Then, at the end of the term’s first week, he had to dive into a very different subject. “I’ve become an expert in immigration law,” he says.
Luca is a Mexican citizen, and, like most international students in US MBA programs, he’d like to stay on after graduation and work here, most likely for a real estate investment company in Chicago. All that may now be in jeopardy. (“Luca” is a pseudonym; he requested that Bloomberg Businessweek use it to avoid drawing the government’s attention—especially given the immigrant enforcement campaign now underway in Chicago.) On Sept. 19, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation to rein in the H-1B program, which allows nonimmigrant foreigners to work in the US. H-1B status ostensibly lasts for three years, although it can be, and often is, extended.