Visas

[froggy]

Thoses in charge, your fired.

Forget the border: Look how many illegal immigrants get here THIS way... - Allen B. West - AllenBWest.com

ABC: US deliberately ignoring social-media posts in visa vetting

 

[waltky]

Disney abusin' the H-B1 visa system...

If Companies Are Caught Abusing H-1B Visa Program, ‘They Should Never Be Allowed to Use it Again’
March 11, 2016 | Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Thursday at CNN’s GOP presidential debate at the University of Miami that if a company is caught abusing the H-1B visa program the way Disney did, they should never be allowed to use it again.

In 2014, 250 tech workers for Disney in Orlando were laid off and replaced with foreign workers, Washington Times reporter Stephen Dinan said. Dinan asked Rubio, “You support increasing the H-1B visa program that made it possible to bring in these foreign workers. Doesn't this program take jobs away from Americans?” “If it's being abused the way Disney did,” Rubio responded. “Understand that program, it is illegal now under that program to use it to replace American workers. Under that program, you have to prove not only that you're not replacing Americans, but that you've tried to hire Americans, and if a company is caught abusing that process, they should never be allowed to use it again,” he added.

Rubio explained that in many cases, companies don’t directly hire foreign workers. They use consulting companies that hoard H-1B visas. “The second problem with the current structure of the program that people perhaps don't understand is a lot of these companies are not directly hiring employees from abroad. They are hiring a consulting company like Tata, for example, out of India. That company then hoards up all of these visas. They hire workers. You hire -- Disney or some other company hires this company,” said Rubio. “What they're basically doing is they are insourcing and outsourcing,” he said. “They are bringing in workers from abroad that are not direct employees of a Disney or someone else. “They're employees of this consulting business, and what I argue is that no consulting business such as that should be allowed to hoard up all of these visas, that the visas should only be available for companies to use to directly hire workers and that we should be stricter in how he enforce it,” Rubio added.

Rubio said he would be open to putting the H-1B visa program on pause until such abuses are solved. “Well first, I think -- well, I'd be open to it if it takes a pause. But I don't think it takes a pause to enforce the law. What they are doing is they are in fact using that program to replace an American,” Rubio said.

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump acknowledged that he has used the H-1B visa program, but said it was “very bad for workers” and called for an end to it. “First of all, I think and I know the H1B very well, and it's something that I frankly use, and I shouldn't be allowed to use it. We shouldn't have it. Very, very bad for workers, and second of all, I think it's very important to say, well, I'm a businessman, and I have to do what I have to do, when it's sitting there waiting for you, but it's very bad,” Trump said. “It's very bad for business in terms of -- and it's very bad for our workers, and it's unfair for our workers, and we should end it,” he said.

Rubio: If Companies Are Caught Abusing H-1B Visa Program, ‘They Should Never Be Allowed to Use it Again’

 

[waltky]

DOL gonna tighten up on temporary work visas...

Labor Dept. Spending $100 Million to Reduce Reliance On Temporary Work Visas
June 10, 2016 – The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced Tuesday that it will award $100 million in competitive tuition-free job training grants to help U.S. businesses reduce their reliance on temporary work visas.

The grant program is part of the America’s Promise Job-Driven Grants program launched by Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, in April. “These grants are part of the Obama administration’s commitment to redesigning a modern skills infrastructure in America that engages employers as never before,” Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said. A DOL spokesperson further explained the program to CNSNews.com, saying that it will connect tuition-free job-training/education programs with employers to create apprenticeship curriculums. The curriculums will help develop specific industry skillsets within each region so that workers can be equally qualified for jobs at different companies.

The $100 million will come from fees that businesses pay when they use the H-1B temporary visa program to bring foreign workers into the U.S. Between 20 and 40 four-year grants will be awarded, and each one will be worth between $1 million and $6 million, the spokesperson added. DOL listed some requirements needed to get a grant: “For each sector and service area, partnerships must include the public workforce system, an economic development agency, at least one education and training provider and at least five employers or a regional industry association." The DOL says that as more American workers are trained, businesses will not have to rely on the H-1B program to find qualified employees. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the H-1B visa program allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers with a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent for “specialty occupation” jobs. However, Congress caps the H-1B visas granted at 85,000 per year, including 20,000 reserved for foreign students who graduate with a postgraduate degree from a U.S. college or university.

David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a former assistant for farm labor to the Secretary of Labor, told CNSNews that it is “commendable” for the federal government to use foreign worker fees to train American workers. But North said he is much more worried about alleged abuses in the H-1B program, saying that “there are many resident workers with solid STEM skills in the U.S,” but “companies prefer younger, cheaper, more docile foreign workers, and sometimes break the law to make use of them.” Ira Mehlman, media director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, also thinks that it is “reasonable” to create “public/private partnerships to help people improve their job skills.” Though he could not comment on the specifics of the DOL’s new grant program, Mehlman told CNSNews that there is a “perception on the part of a lot of employers that they don’t need to invest in worker training,” and can “use the United States government as a giant personnel agency to send them workers whenever they want them.”

He also suggested that the “government needs to be more judicious in issuing H-1B visas” so that companies stop “using H-1B workers in place of American workers.” On the other hand, the American Immigration Council (AIC) claims on its website that H-1B visas are not taking away American jobs, saying that “workers do not necessarily compete against each other for a fixed number of jobs.” In the U.S. economy, “H-1B workers positively impact our economy and the employment opportunities of native-born workers,” according to AIC. But Hal Salzman, professor of public policy at Rutgers University, told the Chicago Tribune that the majority of H-1B visas go to foreign IT workers who do not have exceptional skills."There is no shortage of IT workers, just those available at a discount."

Labor Dept. Spending $100 Million to Reduce Reliance On Temporary Work Visas