Yeah, the high level idea of “get H1Bs back to their original purpose” (hiring high skill employees in sectors with labour shortages in America) makes a lot of sense, and I say this as a major Trump hater. It’s a good idea. But some of the implementation details really suck, and this is a key one. It’s incredibly common for outstanding employees in technical fields to come from non-traditional backgrounds.

Screwing up details like this could be simple incompetence - the Trump administration is quite bad when it comes to putting “yes men” with little relevant experience in key decision making positions. Or it could be malice - a strongly anti-immigrant policy disguised as something less anti-immigrant. I can easily see it being either one.