When President Donald Trump signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Nov. 30, it raised concerns among company leaders and the foreign nationals they employ about who would have legal work status in this country.

But fears about the trade deal that Trump says is better for the United States than the North American Free Trade Agreement appear to have been overblown, since immigration rules would remain the same under the USMCA.

“The political rhetoric was ‘Get rid of NAFTA as a whole,’” said immigration attorney Reggie Pacis, a shareholder with Butzel Long in Detroit. “The employer would be concerned, ‘Am I employing somebody illegally now? Can we still have this person doing the work they’ve been doing all these years?’”

Canadian and Mexican workers with TN (Treaty NAFTA) visas, which allow them to work in the United States, would be affected. Significant changes could hit border cities, such as Detroit, particularly hard.

“For the better part of a year, many Canadians and Mexicans were very much wondering if NAFTA would survive, so they filed for H-1Bs,” said Eli Maroko, a partner at the Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss law firm in Southfield. H-1B visas, available for foreign nationals throughout the world, aren’t dependent on NAFTA.

However, a draft of the USMCA reveals identical immigration law language to NAFTA, Maroko said.

“It doesn’t change any of the TN … category at all — not even a word,” he said.

In metro Detroit, hospitals are staffed with Canadian nurses, and auto suppliers use Mexican nationals, said Kate McCarroll, an immigration attorney and member with the Kerr Russell & Weber law firm in Detroit.

“We’re seeing a lot of engineers coming out of Mexico, more than I’ve seen in previous years,” she said. “I think there would be tremendous pushback if it changed.”

Although then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signed the USMCA, along with Trump, it still hasn’t received approval from Congress or its Mexican and Canadian counterparts.

“The projection (for their approval) I’ve seen is sometime in the spring — but this NAFTA discussion has been going on for a while,” Pacis said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has toughened its stance on TN visas. As of Oct. 1, immigration attorneys no longer can meet foreign workers at the border to help answer U.S. Customs officials’ questions.

“They have stipulated foreign nationals are not entitled to counsel at the border and they’re right,” Pacis said. But he argues that those attorneys, in fact, represent the U.S. companies hiring the workers — and that should be allowed, he said.

“(Having an attorney) was handy,” he said. “The candidates will know all about their profession, but not about the company.”