Highly skilled foreign workers who have come to the U.S. on H-1B visas are looking to take their skills north, as the Trump administration moves to place tighter restrictions on the program.

Vikram Rangnekar, the founder of MovNorth.com—a platform that helps foreign workers in the tech industry make the move from the United States to Canada—said his site has attracted thousands of people looking to head north over recent months.

Many of those looking to make the move are H-1B visa holders, or highly skilled foreign professionals working in areas with shortages of qualified American workers.

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"The H-1B visa is over," Rangnekar told Newsweek. "A lot of places like the U.S., Australia and Singapore are shutting their doors, and people in the tech world are saying, 'Where can I go to set up a life?'"

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For Rangnekar and many others, the answer appears to be Canada. The programmer had been working at LinkedIn in Silicon Valley for six years through the H-1B program, until he decided he'd had enough of the program's restrictive qualities. Rangnekar wanted to start his own tech firm but couldn't do so as an H-1B beneficiary.

"I just wanted my freedom back. I wanted to be able to do other things," Rangnekar said. "After so many years of stress and uncertainty in the U.S., so many people are surprised to find Canada is just this super undermarketed place... All that rhetoric in the U.S. just does not exist."

His comments came amid the Trump administration's recent announcement of a new policy that will make the application process more arduous for companies and skilled workers looking to benefit from the H-1B program.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy memo on Thursday, stating that applicants will now have to supply "detailed statements of work or work orders" about any work performed by employees in the U.S. on an H-1B visa at a third-party site. Employers will also have to provide more information about why they need to hire someone from outside the U.S. to perform a given job.

The move has been billed as a way to "protect American workers" against H-1B visa fraud and abuse.

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It follows fears that President Donald Trump would bring H-1B visa extensions to a halt, as promised as part of a proposal in the president's "Buy American, Hire American" initiative he vowed to launch if elected.

Critics said the move to increase red tape around the H-1B program will reduce approvals for applications.

The Trump administration had already been making it more difficult for skilled foreigners to work in the U.S., challenging visa applications more often than under the Obama administration, according to data reviewed by Reuters last September.

Data provided from USCIS showed that the agency issued 85,000 challenges of "requests for evidence" to H-1B visa petitions between January 1 and August 31, a 45 percent increase over the same time frame last year. Such challenges slow down the process of issuing visas.

However, as the U.S. continues to crack down on immigration and close off its borders, the country's northern neighbor seems increasingly determined to widen the gates.

Last June, Canada launched its Global Talent Stream (GTS) program, a fast-track extension of its Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which allows for highly skilled workers, mostly in the tech industry, to enter the country for work on a temporary basis in as little as two weeks.