Staffing firms must prepare for potential immigration policy changes under Trump's 2025 presidency by strengthening domestic recruitment, offering compliance guidance, and developing contingency staffing plans.
A new presidency and recruitment may not immediately seem interconnected. However, with former President Donald Trump returning to office in 2025, talent acquisition (TA) teams must pay attention. His proposed tough stances on immigration have the potential to upend whole industries, leaving significant workforce gaps that hiring professionals will need to fill.
Immigration policies may not change overnight but are likely to have wide-ranging impacts. Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an attorney representing immigrants, said that while Trump's team is "furiously planning to start taking action immediately in January," TA professionals shouldn't wait to see what they should do. "We know what they're going to do. We've been through this before," she says.
The U.S. is home to one-fifth of the world's immigrant population. Trump's election promise to increase deportation may impact the 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to estimates by the Center for Migration Studies, and recruitment professionals who may need to fill sudden gaps in manufacturing and industrial work, energy growth, and hospitality.
In 2019, ICE raided the workplace of a Texas technology company, arresting 284 employees for violating immigration regulations. It's anticipated that Trump's next term will be stricter on immigration than his last term.
However, there is a silver lining for staffing firms and businesses that begin to act now: proactive measures may reduce delays in accessing legal counsel, minimize disruptions to productivity, and safeguard migrant workers from the risk of deportation.
Businesses that want to extend sponsorship of their foreign-born workers with statuses expiring in 2025 should submit applications before the next administration takes office on January 20, 2025. However, extensions can only be filed six months before the expiration date.
Caroline Tang, an attorney and immigration shareholder at an employment law firm, said that the process will likely be slower even if a company files to extend or renew its employee's work authorization now. She says that even for long-standing foreign-born employees, Immigration Services will still request additional evidence and ask many questions.
Take a look at what changes may come to fruition in Trump’s next term and how to anticipate the surging demands in staffing.
Before any changes occur, Emily Dickens, Head of Government Affairs for the Society of Human Resource Management, told HR Brew that TA professionals should take a deep breath. To avoid being overwhelmed, she recommends clearly understanding which policies may most impact businesses and monitoring them accordingly. But what can be expected of the new administration?
Aside from deportation, the key expected immigration policy shifts are changes to the H-1B "working visa" program. This common employer-sponsored visa became more limited in Trump's first term, allowing temporary workers and business travelers to enter and work in the U.S. for up to six years. H1-B visas for specialty occupations like nurses, financial analysts, and computer scientists may become increasingly difficult for immigrants who enter the country by redefining what constitutes a specialty occupation. Experts speculate that a redefined program may also push the required wage levels of these visa holders to amounts that are too expensive for employers. The policy that allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the U.S. may be reversed. This spousal work authorization was granted under previous reforms, which were separate from policies encouraging STEM field immigration.
This time, Trump returns to office with increased sway among Silicon Valley business leaders, many of whom are immigrants. Immigration attorneys Tafapolsky and Smith LLC argue that Silicon Valley executives who traditionally support skilled immigration policies may soften their stances.
It's also expected that Trump's Buy American and Hire American policy will resurface, prioritizing American workers while reforming immigration policies.
However, Trump's anticipated policy changes won't impact industries uniformly.
Suppose the U.S. slows down immigration and applies more widespread tariffs, as Trump has promised. In that case, inflation will likely increase, slowing the economy as it did during the Great Recession in 2007 and making hiring more arduous.
The Center for Migration Studies states that foreign-born workers are mainly employed in service occupations such as construction, transportation, and material moving jobs. Here are a few potential outcomes if new immigration laws are implemented:
Regardless of which way the policies go, it's clear that traditional staffing models are becoming more complex. Here are some predictions for a more domestic focus on hiring talent.
Unfortunately, if immigrant talent pools diminish, roles that Americans don't want and immigrants generally fill — will become more challenging. Businesses must double down on domestic talent pools that may otherwise be overlooked.
There are many strategies for filling near-term needs in roles like early-level manufacturing. For those already in the industry or industry-aligned roles, staffing gaps can be filled with rapid upskilling, retraining people with transferable skills, and creating more pathways for certification and industry transition. Expanding the staff search to diverse places, from trade schools to community colleges, professional associations, and veterans organizations, will maximize the talent pool.
The publication Inside Higher Ed says Trump's likely revival—or expansion—of the Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Program may also create more potential employees. Recruitment teams can help businesses anticipate these surging recruitment needs by bolstering the bonds with their clients.
Staffing firms can continually nurture client relationships and become indispensable when leveling up to provide services beyond tactical execution. In-house talent teams may be unable to look ahead and mitigate risks in the hiring and employment law landscape alone. This is a key opportunity for staffing firms to step in and become strategic workforce partners to forecast and troubleshoot issues together.
According to Recruitics' Talent Market Index, immigration restrictions could intensify competition for domestic talent in sectors like agriculture, hospitality, and technology. A strategic approach to talent acquisition helps address these challenges. Staffing professionals need a data-driven recruitment strategy to attract talent at all levels, from laborers and machinists to tech-savvy professionals. This targeted approach helps overcome hiring challenges and meet recruitment targets efficiently.
While legal compliance guidance isn't the bread and butter of staffing firms' services, they must be knowledgeable about hiring and employment laws and regulations. Staffing teams can serve clients by proactively keeping them abreast of changes in the legal landscape and mitigating how changes may affect their business.
Staffing firms can partner with immigration lawyers to provide their clients with a range of immigration compliance guidance, such as educational workshops, compliance toolkits, referrals for legal advice, and support with the heavy lifting required to prepare for potential immigration audits.
"I think the best thing that hiring professionals can do is have a good lawyer on your side," Lincoln-Goldfinch told HR Brew. She says, "Whether you're looking to do a self-audit, you're looking to protect, you're looking to get better outcomes on your immigration cases—all of that stuff requires good lawyers."
Staffing firms can prove their value by going above and beyond by helping their clients shape and develop contingency staffing plans. In addition to risk assessments, diversifying the talent pipeline, developing skills transfer programs, and partnering with clients to build more flexible staffing models may be a good investment of resources. If staffing strategies are created with flexible workforces in mind, it may be easier to pivot quickly alongside regulation changes.
Recruiting teams can also help foreign-born employees create their contingency plans. They can encourage current I-9 employees to renew their visas as soon as possible, educate them on their rights, and supply them with resources such as "know your rights" cards.
Increased scrutiny for employers means staffing teams must be vigilant, utilize technology, and innovate processes. Investing in tools that can help firms identify vulnerabilities in their workforce makes good business sense.
As immigration regulations evolve, technology like AI can supplement the hiring and employment processes to screen, flag, and assess potential risks and encourage better decision-making. Using technology to innovate immigration compliance processes provides extra layers of security—perhaps vetting candidates before or triple-checking a candidate assessment—but superior technology and AI can carry challenges. Hiring teams should work with IT and other partners with AI expertise to avoid security risks and manage employee learning curves and the potential for bias.
Staffing firms can also counsel clients on best practices for meticulous processes if immigration agents arrive on the premises. These include having I-9 forms and other authorization documents in order, having designated high-level staffers prepare and maintain these documents, and, of course, having legal counsel contacts to consult.
Tip: Recruitics' AI-powered platform, Vision, provides consolidated and customizable reporting to help users examine and report on recruitment data. This can help them make high-impact, data-driven decisions.
These proactive and thorough processes can give staffing teams and their employers peace of mind. Proper training to document employment authorization records is imperative to ensure that staff understand the weight of compliance and are mindful of the critical aspects of the work, where accuracy is paramount. HR Brew suggests that hiring teams practice self-audits of their documentation once a year or more to mitigate risk.
Even if the business's executives aren't prioritizing immigration risk management and compliance, recruitment professionals can advise their clients that they can seize a critical opportunity to lead the organization by example. They can also be upfront and share how changing regulations may impact foreign-born staff rather than letting concerns linger.
Hiring teams may also wish to prepare talking points to provide a united front to candidates and employees questioning the company's stance and values around immigration and mass deportations.
To better understand how businesses are doing around immigration compliance and risk management, set standards for success.
Considering how vital adherence to immigration law is, a robust KPI structure helps gauge the effectiveness of talent acquisition and legal departments. Suggested measures include:
Immigration and recruitment are complex and require shorter-term and longer-term action plans for businesses.
However, any concerns the business has about immigration will be felt even more by foreign-born workers on their teams. Be sure to work with these employees sensitively and be ready to answer their questions head-on.
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To stay focused on immigration compliance best practices, Recruitics can handle your ongoing recruitment efforts with customizable, streamlined analytics. Contact us to discuss how we can make recruitment easier in 2025.
