The first Trump administration brought significant changes to U.S. immigration policies, which had profound impacts on businesses and individuals alike. Donald Trump has shared plans for closing the U.S. borders and enforcing mass deportations for undocumented immigrants almost immediately after taking office in January. Below are five major impacts to immigration policy we saw as a result of Trump's first term, and what we can expect for his second term.

1. Extreme Vetting: The administration introduced stringent vetting processes for visa applicants, with the stated aim of enhancing national security. This led to longer processing times and increased scrutiny of applicants' backgrounds. The U.S. Department of State, whose Bureau of Consular Affairs oversees the issuance of U.S. visas, has yet to recover from staffing shortages resulting from the first Trump administration, while geopolitical conflicts continue to grow in size and severity, drawing limited resources away from visa processing. Like under the first Trump administration, visa applicants – and the U.S. companies that employ them – can expect extremely long wait times for visa interview appointments, more frequent administrative processing delays, and much higher visa refusal rates. Foreign workers may be less able to travel internationally for work due to the risk of being unable to return to the U.S.
    
2. Hiring and Onboarding Delays: Slow adjudication and consular operations, coupled with heavy scrutiny, caused significant delays in hiring and onboarding international employees. Businesses faced challenges in maintaining their high-skilled workforces due to these prolonged processes since such (legal) foreign workers are the cohort most affected by delays and increased scrutiny of work visa applications. Only the H-2 visa category for seasonal and temporary workers seems to have been unaffected by these delays. In fact, the number of available H-2 visas doubled under Trump, and applications maintained an average approval rate of over 98 percent. Given this history, employers should plan for delays in onboarding high-skilled foreign workers as well as decreased ability to recruit such candidates to the U.S., though the ability to recruit short-term and seasonal labor should remain steady.
    
3. Business Disruption: Border closures, visa bans, skyrocketing processing times, and denial rates under the first Trump administration exacerbated the staffing issues faced by companies during the pandemic and recovery. Year-plus processing times caused foreign nationals working legally in the U.S. to lose their work authorization and, in some cases, their jobs as employers struggled to navigate the changing adjudication standards. Employers in highly scrutinized industries like construction, manufacturing, food service, hospitality, and agriculture can expect increased immigration enforcement activity, including raids. Raids, in particular, have a chilling impact on recruitment and hiring even of authorized workers, including workers permanently authorized to work in the U.S. – like U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and asylees. In 2022, a federal court ordered ICE to pay more than $1 million to victims of the agency's raid of a meatpacking plant in Tennessee, after determining ICE agents used racial profiling and excessive force to illegally detain workers without regard to their actual status – lawful or unlawful – in the U.S.
    
4. Increased Costs: The cost of sponsoring employees for visas and green cards increased due to additional documentary requirements and higher denial rates. Businesses had to allocate more resources to manage immigration-related expenses. Under the incoming administration, employers can expect a return to those high immigration costs and then some. Since Biden took office, denial rates for H-1B visa applications have hovered between 2 – 3 percent; under Trump, H-1B denial rates were more than triple that, ranging from 8 – 15 percent.
    
5. Uncertainty: In the first Trump administration, sudden policy changes, reduced service levels, and uncertain decisions created concern among employees and businesses. Companies had to adjust their expectations and factor in events that created disruptions impacting all levels of their business, including employee onboarding, production, and service delivery. We expect the impacts of the areas outlined above will lead to a significant number of additional uncertainties for both employers and employees that could impact workforce morale and productivity in anticipation of what could come.

• Policy Changes and Executive Orders: The previous Trump administration used executive orders, proclamations, and internal policy changes to implement these policies swiftly, causing confusion and making strategic planning difficult. The policy announcements and political nominations already proposed by the incoming administration indicate that the administration will seek to implement their restrictive immigration policy priorities as swiftly as possible after the transition in January 2025.
   
• Travel Bans: Travel bans implemented under the previous Trump administration prevented foreign nationals abroad from entering the U.S. It also deterred foreign nationals legally present in the U.S. from departing, due to the fear of being unable to return. Companies had to plan to ensure employees were not stranded outside the U.S. while expending substantial resources bringing stranded workers back to the U.S. or arranging for legal employment in other countries to mitigate losses.
   
• Increased Scrutiny: Immigration filings faced high scrutiny, with no deference given to previous approvals. Documentary requirements increased and denial rates rose significantly – exceeding 30 percent for some work visa categories.

Employers should expect the administration to take a restrictive approach to immigration. With Republican majorities in Congress, there is also a strong possibility that conservative immigration legislation will be passed. This means the policies and practices that affect employers the most could wind up enshrined in law, limiting the ability of future administrations to eliminate or reverse them. Even so, there are steps companies can take to mitigate the impact of these shifts in U.S. immigration policy.