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Should Foreign workers take American jobs?

Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Sun, 03/11/2012

Last year the U.S. Department of Forestry received $13 million in federal stimulus money to pay for some pre-commercial timber harvesting and thinning in Deschutes and Crook County in Central Oregon. With unemployment close to 20% in those counties one would think that it would be good news for out of work Americans - jobs paying $12 to $22 per hour. Unfortunately the jobs did not go to citizens; they went to foreign workers from Mexico.

Using the H-2B visa program, employment contractors brought in foreign workers. The H-2B visa program is theoretically in place to provide non-agricultural, unskilled labors to be used if American workers are unavailable. H-2B visas can be used for hotel maids, fry cooks, landscapers, loggers and other so-called unskilled labor. The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, after studying the operation of temporary worker provisions recommended the elimination entirely of the H-2B visa program.

“The Commission recommends the elimination of the admission of unskilled workers. Unless there is another compelling interest, such as in the entry of nuclear families and refugees, it is not in the national interest to admit unskilled workers. This is especially true when the U.S. economy is showing difficulty in absorbing disadvantaged workers and when efforts towards welfare reform indicate that many unskilled Americans will be entering the labor force.”

While nibbling at the edge of the cookie is a move in the right direction, instead of ending the idiocy of the H-2B visa program, Senator Jeff Merkley and Congressman Peter DeFazio want it refined. Do we really need to import fry cooks, hotel maids, loggers and people to cut our lawns?

Please consider calling these legislators and asking them to end the scam of the H-2B visa program:

Senator Jeff Merkley (202) 224-3753; Portland office: 503-326-3386
webform for email: http://www.merkley.senate.gov/contact/

Congressman Peter DeFazio (202) 225-6416; Toll Free in Oregon: 800-944-9603

webform for email: https://forms.house.gov/defazio/IMA/contact.html

Merkley and DeFazio move to plug holes in visa program that allows foreign workers to be hired instead of local ones

WASHINGTON - Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Peter DeFazio will offer legislation Wednesday designed to close gaping loopholes in a visa program that allows forest companies to hire foreign workers even though there are an abundance of qualified - and idle - U.S. citizens in Oregon and elsewhere who would take the jobs.

The flaws in what is known as the H-2B visa program burst into national view last fall when the Inspector General for the federal Department of Labor concluded that at least $7 million in federal stimulus money intended to provide jobs to unemployed Oregonians instead paid wages to 254 foreign workers.

While the report triggered outrage in rural Oregon, where unemployment in some places was 20 percent and in Washington, federal investigators said no laws were broken. For example, under federal rules, notice of the job openings must be made where the job "originates." And while the bulk of the work took place in Oregon, smaller jobs originated in other states. That allowed the companies to post small ads in newspapers in California and other far-flung places for a brief period.

When the response fell short of need, the companies could claim that no local workers could be found and therefore could look to workers in other countries. DeFazio and Merkley want to fix that. "We want to make sure this travesty is not repeated," Merkley said.

If their bill becomes law, companies would be required to advertise at local job fairs, list the job openings with local and state workforce agencies and nonprofits and advertising on local radio and reputable Internet job-search sites.

State workforce agencies, such as Oregon's Employment Department could also require "other recruitment strategies" be used to ensure that potential workers are notified.

Most importantly, state workforce agencies would be required to certify that companies asking for H-2B visas meet all the requirements and that no local workers are available. "That gives tremendous leverage to the state; it's a real lever to make sure there aren't abuses," Merkley said.

Nobody could claim with a straight face that there weren’t Oregonians available to do forest thinning work in 2009 and 2010,” Merkley said. “It’s obvious that the H-2B visa program is being abused and that stricter standards are necessary to ensure Americans have a full opportunity to fill these jobs.”

The decision to introduce legislation came after the lawmakers, both Democrats, concluded that earlier efforts to convince the Department of Labor to tighten the way the visa program operates were not succeeding.

“The Department of Labor has made some common sense changes, but we need to do more to ensure federal dollars that go to federal projects hire American workers," DeFazio said.

"Companies that game the system and exploit immigration loopholes to undercut competition should not be awarded federal contracts. Many of the DOL’s failings have been addressed, but our legislation will further strengthen their rule changes to protect American workers," he said.

As currently designed, the program is riddled with loopholes that allow employers to bring in 66,000 workers for temporary, non-agriculture jobs each year. Once a worker qualifies for H-2B status that worker does not count against the next year's quota so the actual number of foreign workers brought to the United States to work each year is much higher. The program was originally designed to provide labor for jobs that U.S. citiziens did not want or local businesses could not fill.

But the case involving contracts to clear U.S. Forest Service property highlighted the gaping loopholes in the program. One of the biggest is notification. Under law, companies must advertise the job openings and if U.S. workers do not respond they then are allowed to look offshore. But the law says the advertisements must be published where the job "originates." In the Oregon case, a small number of jobs originated outside Oregon, which is where the ads ran in tiny newspapers.

Merkley and DeFazio each sent letters to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis highlighting flaws in the visa program and suggesting changes to fix the problems.

"Over the past year it has come to light that several contractors exploited loopholes in the H-2B visa process to intentionally hire foreign workers, rather than available Americans, for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded jobs on Forest Service lands in Oregon. This is unacceptable," DeFazio said in his letter delivered in October. Merkley followed suit in December.

The H-2B visa program was created as a safety valve that would give local companies to fill jobs with foreign workers when the labor market is tight and competitive. Under law, companies must show that there are no local workers available for the jobs and that hiring foreign workers would not dilute local wages. But the system was largely self-policing and it has been riddled with weaknesses.

The federal investigation triggering the legislation from Merkley and DeFazio looked at 14 contracts to clear federal forests in central Oregon. The contracts were controlled by four Oregon companies: Medford Cutting Edge Forestry, Summitt Forestry, Ponderosa Reforestations, and G.E. Forestry. All hired foreign workers, according to the report, though they didn't all handle hiring in the same way.

While legal, the hiring practices appear to violate the spirit and purpose of the $840 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus, which was designed to create jobs that would jumpstart the country out of recession.

The contractors applied for H-2B visas allowing them to hire workers for seasonal jobs, according to the report. In order to get clearance, contractors must prove the jobs can't be filled with local residents and that pay won't dilute local prevailing wages.

Mike Wheelock, owner of Grayback Forestry in Merlin, said his competiors were able to under-bid him for jobs by using foreign workers. While the wages for each worker were similar, he said that companies using foreign workers would hire fewer workers, pay less for health insurance and not offer 401k plans and other benefits.

"Unscrupulous contractors used loop holes within the H2B program to get around hiring qualified Oregonian workers," he said in an interview.

At the time of the stimulus jobs were offered, Wheelock said there were thousands of qualified local people out of work who could have stepped into those jobs.

"Rural Oregon, which in some areas has seen 15 percent to 20 percent unemployment rates, has been the hardest hit by these abuses of our well intended system," he said. "Grayback Forestry hires hundreds of workers in rural Oregon, paying family wage jobs with health insurance and retirement benefits. Sadly, companies like ours were adversely impacted by negligent efforts to enforce the H-2B regulations."

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Senate to Take Action on Bill to Grant 10,500 Additional Work Visas BEFORE St. Paddy’s Day!

In a pre-St. Patrick’s Day gift to the Irish, the latest news from Capitol Hill is that Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Scott Brown (R-MA) are trying to get legislation to the Senate floor this week that would add at least 10,500 annual guest worker visas for Irish nationals. The legislation could come in the form of either an amended version of S.1983 by Sen. Schumer or S.2005 by Sen. Brown, and would double the number of E-3 visa holders to the U.S. each year. The number of workers brought into the country could grow exponentially once an unlimited number of visas are handed out to the spouses and children (up to the age of 21) of these visa holders.

This legislation not only hurts Americans because it brings in more guest workers at a time of high unemployment, it represents terrible immigration policy because it carves out a special rule for one particular nationality. Moreover, to qualify for this visa, aliens would need to meet only nominal requirements. The legislation, as amended, only requires visa recipients to have two years of work experience in a particular field, OR to have obtained a high school diploma or its equivalent. Employers are not required to look for U.S. workers first before sponsoring an E-3 visa holder.

CALL your Senators TODAY and tell them:

You oppose S.1983 and S.2005;
The U.S. should NOT add an additional 10,500 guest workers to compete with the already 13 million unemployed Americans seeking jobs; and
Congress should not be in the business of carving out special rules for members of a single nationality. Congress should draft immigration law so that it is uniform in application and is blind to the home country of an alien applicant.

Find your Senators’ phone numbers http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Read more about Senate to Take Action on Bill to Grant 10,500 Additional Work Visas BEFORE St. Paddy’s Day!

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SENATE to Take Action on Bill to Grant 10,500 Additional Work Visas

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Scott Brown (R-MA) are trying to get legislation to the Senate floor this week that would add at least 10,500 annual guest worker visas for Irish nationals. This bill, an amended version of S.1983, would double the number of E-3 visa holders to the U.S. each year. The number of workers brought into the country could grow exponentially once an unlimited number of visas are handed out to the spouses and children (up to the age of 21) of these visa holders.

CALL your Senators TODAY and tell them:
• You oppose S.1983;
• The U.S. should NOT add an additional 10,500 guest workers to compete with the already 13 million unemployed Americans seeking jobs; and
• Congress should not be in the business of carving out special rules for members of a single nationality. Congress should draft immigration law so that it is uniform in application and is blind to the home country of an alien applicant.
________________________________________
Senator Jeff Merkley
(202) 224-3753
Web Form for email at: www.merkley.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Ron Wyden
(202) 224-5244
Web Form for email at: www.wyden.senate.gov/contact/ Read more about SENATE to Take Action on Bill to Grant 10,500 Additional Work Visas

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New immigration rule to help citizen relatives

The Obama administration plans a rule change to help reduce the time illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from citizen relatives while they try to win legal status in the United States, a senior administration official said.

Currently, illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission.

The official said Thursday the new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask the government to decide on the waiver request before the illegal immigrant heads to his or her home country to apply for a visa. The illegal immigrants still must go home to finish the visa process to come back to the U.S., but getting the waiver ahead of time could reduce the time an illegal immigrant is out of the country.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposed policy change had not been made public.

The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. Congressional Republicans repeatedly have criticized the administration for policy changes they describe as providing "backdoor amnesty" to illegal immigrants.

Immigrants who do not have criminal records and who have only violated immigration laws can win a waiver if they can prove that their absence would cause an "extreme hardship" for their citizen spouse or parent. The government received about 23,000 hardship applications in 2011 and more than 70 percent were approved, the official said.

Applications for the waiver can take as long as six months to be acted upon, the official said. The new rule is expected to reduce that processing time to just days or weeks, the official added.

"This would streamline the process (and) reduce the time of separation between family members," the official said.

The proposal will be published in the Federal Register on Friday. The official said the administration hopes to change the rule later this year.

Immigration has become a difficult issue for Mr. Obama ahead of the November election. As a presidential candidate, he pledged to change what many consider to be a broken immigration system.

To that end, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced plans last year to review some 300,000 pending deportation cases in an effort to target criminal illegal immigrants, repeat immigration law violators and those who pose a national security or public safety threat. Napolitano said the DHS would delay indefinitely the cases of many illegal immigrants who have no criminal record and those who have been arrested for only minor traffic violations or other misdemeanors.

A pilot program to review about 12,000 cases pending in immigration court in Baltimore and Denver was launched in November and ends next week. The review is expected to expand to other jurisdictions later this year.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton also issued a memo in June outlining how immigration authorities could use discretion in deciding which illegal immigrants to arrest and put into deportation proceedings. Morton wrote in the memo that discretion could be used in a variety of cases, including for people with no criminal record and young people brought to the country illegally as children.

Congressional Republicans have decried the policy changes, arguing that the Obama administration is circumventing Congress to essentially provide amnesty to countless illegal immigrants.

Rep. Lamar Smith, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has been among the most vocal critics and has accused Obama repeatedly of not enforcing immigration law.

Several attempts at an immigration law overhaul have failed in recent years, including the so-called DREAM Act, which would have allowed for some young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to earn legal status if they went to college or joined the military.

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visas

Should Foreign workers take American jobs?

Merkley and DeFazio move to plug holes in visa program that allows foreign workers to be hired instead of local ones

Senate to Take Action on Bill to Grant 10,500 Additional Work Visas BEFORE St. Paddy’s Day!

SENATE to Take Action on Bill to Grant 10,500 Additional Work Visas

New immigration rule to help citizen relatives