President Donald Trump's executive order to suspend some new visas for 60 days doesn't include everyone, but was put in place while he focuses on "rebuilding the American labor pool," that has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said Thursday.
"He doesn't want to be bringing, enlarging that pool artificially with foreign workers right now when Americans are filing unemployment claims at a record level," Cucinelli said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "He is very worried about that (and) very worried about American opportunity."
Trump has said often that his first job as president, "after keeping us all safe," is creating opportunity for Americans, said Cuccinelli, "and that's what this executive order does."
New York Attorney General Letitia James tweeted a warning Wednesday that she is ready to take legal action against Trump's executive order, as there are immigrants who work essential jobs on the frontlines of the coronavirus crisis, but Cuccinelli said Thursday she is "welcome to lose."
The order bans green cards for everyone except for essential and healthcare workers, or people related to American citizens, and comes as part of Trump's goal to "keep us safe."
"People working on medical response to the virus, the food supply, can still come in," said Cuccinelli. "It is the other folks that don't come in and can't enter our job pool and can't compete with Americans right now at a time when we have gone from record low unemployment to skyrocketing unemployment claims. It's something that the president is very concerned about."
Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection has put up webcams along the border wall construction sites so people can watch footage of the border wall going up.
"The Department of Defense is still working to keep us safe," he said. "The virus makes that tough but we have missions to accomplish."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.