The U.S. government should stop the inflow of foreign visa-workers for the rest of 2020, says an April 17 petition on the White House’s website.

“50 Million Americans are unemployed, Please halt employment Visas for this year,” says the petition, which needs 100,000 signatures by May 17 to force a response from the White House.

The petition may prove popular, in part, because opinions polls have shown the public strongly objects to companies hiring foreign workers before American employees. An August 2017 poll reported 68 percent of Americans oppose companies’ use of H-1Bs to outsource U.S.-based jobs that could be held by Americans.

A growing number of advocates — perhaps with the tacit approval of the White House — are calling for a temporary halt in the visa programs. For example, Congress should only lend recovery funds to companies which employer Americans, said Gene Nelson, a technology professional who has been repeatedly displaced by H-1B visa workers. “Hire American citizens only,” he said.

The calls came before Trump announced Monday night that he would temporarily suspend immigration. A New York Times report said the suspension would include the foreign visa-workers

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020

Trump’s tweet got 174,000 retweets by 1.20 am.

But U.S. and Indian business groups have been working for several weeks to restart the wage-cutting visa programs, despite the loss of roughly 20 million jobs.

“Congress should act and renew these visas/status/benefits because DHS won’t and this is a crisis,” said a tweet from Todd Schulte, director of FWD.us. The group was founded by wealthy West Coast investors, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, to help pass the 2013 “Gang of Eight” cheap labor and amnesty law.

In March, a group of GOP Senators shut down a Democratic push to automatically extend the visas of all foreign workers.

Nationwide, Congress allows companies and investors to employ a population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar foreign workers in jobs needed by American graduates. The number includes roughly 1 million Indian graduates and 270,000 Chinese graduates. This huge population includes roughly 900,000 people with H-1B visas and at least 200,000 graduates with “Optional Practical Training” work permits.

The U.S. also provides visas or work permits to at least one million blue-collar workers, most of whom are Latino.

Any increase in the population of visa workers is a double benefit for companies and investors: The illegal workers reduce each company’s payroll costs and inflate each company’s sales.

But any increased supply of labor and consumers is a household problem for the roughly 150 million Americans who make their living from wages and salaries. The additional foreign workers cut their salaries and wages, raise their rents, housing prices, and commutes, and often reduce the education resources going to their kids.

The White House petition was created by “M.J.” on April 17. The site does not reveal the identity of the author, or the identity of people who sign the petition . The text says:

1) H1B Visa is meant to only fill the employment gaps when Citizens are not available, it is never meant to replace Americans with H1B Visa employees for low wages. 2) Salary for non-immigrant workers is stagnant for almost 30 years now, every country including India give incentive to buy Indian products by imposing higher tax on foreign products, but we are giving tax payer money to the companies for hiring foreign OPT Visa employees. 3) We are a capitalist country; a lottery will only help immigration attorneys who work for bigger corporations to game the system, replace H1B Lottery with H1B Bidding, make minimum H1B salary twice the salary of a US Citizen doing the same job and shorten duration of every visa to one year.

The petition requires individuals to open an account at the White House website. The instructions say:

Once the petition reaches the required threshold, it will be put in a queue to be reviewed by the White House. Others can still sign the petition while it is awaiting a response. When the White House responds, everyone who has signed the petition will get email from the White House to let you know that we’ve reviewed and responded to the petition.