On Tuesday, the US President Donald Trump signed an executive order that advices federal agencies of the US to promote “Hire American” policies and to audit employment immigration laws.

The order produces no prompt amendments to H1-B visa programs but tells the Departments of, Justice, Labor, Homeland Security and State to study ongoing laws and procedures and mention any amendments.

In the case of one program, H-1B temporary visas, the order directs the agencies to suggest changes to help ensure that the visas are awarded to the most skilled, best-paid immigrant workers.

Mr. Trump said at the signing in Kenosha, Wis.“Right now, H-1B visas are awarded in a totally random lottery, and that’s wrong,”

The order also tries to snaffle on fraud and abuse in the present scenario of H-1B visas, which the departments had already agreed to do.

Also Read: 10 things to know about new h1b visa rule                                                                    

What is the H-1B program, and why the president is concentrated on it?

In a year, the H-1B program allows a total of 65,000 work visas to foreign workers, with almost 20,000 more visas to foreigners with master degrees and an unlimited number of extra visas for universities, teaching hospitals and other nonprofit organizations. This program is mainly focused on expertise workers, and most of the visas are granted to IT companies, although other specialty industries like fashion also use the visas.

In federal law, employers that hire workers using H-1B visa are expected to provide document that they first tried to look out Americans for the work. All employers are also supposed to pay occurring wages to the immigrant workers who receive the H-1B visas.

A report shows that about 40% of the visas go to start-level workers and another 40 percent go to people with less expertise and skills. The Trump administration states that more of the jobs given to those people should be given to Americans if they are more eligible.

How are the visas allocated?     

Visa applications are generally funded by employers. Each year on April 1, the government begins accepting applications for the next FY, which starts on Oct. 1. This year, the government received 199,000 H-1B applications in just first five days and then closed acceptance.

As there are more applications than the allowed number of visas, the visas are granted through lottery. Each visa is applicable for three years and can get a renewal for three more years.

Who employs these H-1B visa holders?

The largest H-1b visa employers are outsourcing companies based in India such as Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Wipro Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services. These firms have agreements with banks, health care companies and other businesses to manage numerous computing tasks and bring in thousands of immigrants to do the work. Outsourcing companies based in the United States, particularly IBM and Cognizant, also use large numbers of H-1B work visas.

The American tech giants such as Google, Apple and Microsoft hire thousands of H-1B workers. According to federal filings, two companies, chip maker Qualcomm and Facebook, are heavily dependent on H-1B visas, with at least 15% of their American man powers holding the visas. Thousands of Silicon Valley start-ups also employ some H-1B workers.

How do these foreign workers contribute to the American economy?

American IT companies states that there is a scarcity of qualified American citizens for technology and programming jobs, pushing them to turn other parts of the world for workers to meet their employing needs.

Moreover, the previous immigrants or their spouses have played prominent roles in founding many technology companies, including giants like Google, Apple and Intel and new ones like WhatsApp and Airbnb.

The India-based outsourcers, which usually pay lower wages and operate in a different part of the technology ecosystem, say they are assisting US companies cost-cutting on certain basic services so they can keep hiring highly-paid workers in other area of their businesses.

Still, Indian outsourcing companies are preparing for a world of fewer visas, shifting the work to people in India and other countries.