Expect Trump to roll back habitually 'defrauded' immigration program, expert says

President-elect Donald Trump could quickly work to reform the H-1B visa program after years of the program straying further from its original intent, according to one expert.

"It is not being used as was intended by Congress, so it needs to be reformed," said Lora Ries, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, regarding the H-1B visa program in an interview with Fox News Digital.

The comments come as Trump prepares to transition from candidate to president for the second time, with the president-elect already busy announcing his picks for critical Cabinet positions and rolling out an agenda for his return to the White House.

One key area Trump is likely to once again focus on as he re-enters the Oval Office is the country’s immigration system, an issue that became a centerpiece of both of his campaigns for the nation’s highest office.

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While securing the border and carrying out a large-scale deportation operation are two policies likely to top the list of priorities for Trump, the president-elect is also likely to attempt to tackle immigration more broadly in his second term.

One such reform is likely to be the H-1B visa program, Ries argued, noting that it has long fallen victim to fraud and abuse.

"Like so many programs, it has gone away from intent and been watered down and defrauded," Ries said.

Trump attempted to tackle the issue during his previous term in office, introducing several reforms in the hopes of eliminating that fraud and ensuring that the program was not harmful to American workers.

Implementing stricter definitions of what is a "specialty occupation" and making it more difficult to obtain H-1B visas for those who do not meet those requirements was one such reform made by Trump, while the president-elect also sought to enforce stricter minimum wage requirements for H-1B holders.

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Those reforms were meant to tackle what Trump viewed as a threat to American workers, who he believed were being passed over for jobs by companies that preferred to hire cheaper foreign labor. 

"The program needs more work protections for Americans," Ries said. "There are plenty of stories of American high-skill workers who were replaced by lower-wage foreign workers who they then had to train to take their jobs."

Trump has in the past struck a similar tone when discussing the program, including a vow to commit to "eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending the outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements" on the campaign trail in 2016.

While the program was originally intended to allow American companies to fill gaps in the American workforce with qualified foreign labor, Ries argued it has since strayed away from that goal. Any reforms by Trump are likely to be similar to his first term as president, Ries said, with the goal of making sure American workers are protected.

"Protecting American workers and not replacing them with foreign workers just because you can pay less money, Ries said.