WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending green cards and visas for a range of foreign guest workers is being described as “gift to China,” even as India is identified the country that will suffer most from the action. The move has also brought the extreme right and left of the US political spectrum on the same page, while pitting Republican lawmakers and White House principals against each other.
Shock waves from the Presidential decree, which had been in the works for several weeks, continued to cascade across US industry, business, and the political arena on Wednesday, even as thousands of skilled foreign professionals found their future upturned, and in some cases, families separated. There were several instances of dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders appealing to US authorities to facilitate their return and re-entry to America after being stuck in India during emergency visits.
But the most striking instances of the division caused by the EO came from two of Trump’s closest political allies – powerful Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. While Graham said the order would have a “chilling effect” on the nation’s economic recovery amid the co