US President Orders Changes to H1-B Visa Program

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to propose changes to the H-1B program. The program is used to bring highly skilled foreign workers to the United States.
美国总统川普已经签署了一项行政命令，指示联邦机构对H-1B签证程序提出修改。该程序被用于将高技能外籍员工带到美国。
Trump signed the order called "Buy American, Hire American" during his Tuesday visit at an American company in the state of Wisconsin. During the presidential campaign, Trump had promised to change the country's immigration policies.
川普周二在访问威斯康星州一家美国公司期间签署了这项名为“买美国货，雇美国人”的行政命令。川普在总统竞选期间曾经承诺修改美国的移民政策。

A senior Trump administration official says the order calls for "the strict enforcement of all laws governing entry into the United States of labor from abroad."
川普政府一名高级官员表示，这项命令要求“严格执行所有管理外籍劳工进入美国的政策。”

The order directs the departments of Labor, Justice, Homeland Security and State to take action against fraud and abuse in the immigration system to protect American workers. It also directs the departments to propose reforms to ensure that H-1B visas are given only to the most-skilled or highest-paid applicants.
该命令指示美国劳工部、司法部、国土安全部和国务院采取行动打击移民制度中的欺诈和滥用行为，以保护美国工人。该命令还指示各部门提出改革，确保H-1B签证仅发放给高技能或高薪的申请人。

The H-1B visa program is designed for foreigners to work for American companies in jobs that usually require higher education -- including scientists, engineers or computer programmers. The government uses a lottery system to give 65,000 visas every year. It gives another 20,000 visas to graduate student workers.
H-1B签证程序旨在服务那些在美国公司中从事需要接受过高等教育的工作的外籍员工，其中包括科学家、工程师或计算机程序员。政府每年采用摇号系统发放6.5万张签证，并为研究生另外提供2万张签证。

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says the number of applications for H-1B visas fell to 199,000 this year from 236,000 in 2016.
美国公民和移民服务局表示，H-1B签证的申请人数已经从去年的23.6万人下降到今年的19.9万人。

American companies say they use the visas to recruit highly skilled workers. A majority of the H-1B visas, however, are given to overseas companies that then send workers to American companies.
美国公司表示，他们采用这种签证招揽高技能员工。然而，大多数H-1B签证都被发放给海外公司，然后这些公司派遣员工到美国公司。

Some critics say those foreign companies give the visas to people to perform lower-level information technology, or IT, jobs. Critics also say the lottery system works in the favor of the large firms that submit a large number of applications.
有评论认为，这些外国公司将签证发给履行较低级别IT职位的人员。评论家还表示，摇号系统对提交了大量申请的大型公司有利。

A Trump administration official says the way the system now works, foreign workers are able to come to the United States and replace American workers because the foreign workers accept lower wages than Americans. The official says this violates "the principle of the program." The administration has said large American technology companies have been using the program to hire large numbers of foreign workers, lowering wages for Americans.
川普政府的一位官员表示，签证制度目前的运作方式使得外国员工得以来到美国取代美国工人，因为这些外国员工接受比美国人更低的工资。该官员表示，这违反了该签证程序的原则。美国政府表示，美国大型公司一直利用该程序雇佣大量外国工人，从而降低美国人的工资。

The Reuters news agency examined U.S. Labor Department records and found that more than 15 percent of Facebook's employees in the United States in 2016 used a temporary work visa.
路透社查看了美国劳工部记录，发现2016年Facebook在美国超过15%的员工使用了临时工作签证。

Employers including Walt Disney World and the University of California in San Francisco have replaced American technology workers with H-1B visa holders. Some of the American workers were forced to train the foreign workers who replaced them.
包括迪士尼和加州大学在内的雇主都用H-1B签证持有人取代了美国技术人员。一些美国工人被迫培训那些要取代他们的外国工人