Trump To Sign ‘Buy American, Hire American’ Executive Orders (H1B Visas Finally Targeted)

Market Watch WSJ ^ | 04/17/17

[Enlightened1]

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order in Wisconsin on Tuesday directing a government-wide review aimed at putting new teeth back into decades-old “Buy American” and “Hire American” directives.

The 220-day review process, which could lead to additional executive orders and possibly legislation, will focus on preventing foreign workers with H-1B visas from, as one senior administration official put it, “undercutting American labor at less cost,” which the official labeled as “an abuse” of the current system.

“This is a clear statement from the president of the United States to shore up some of these abuses,” the official continued. The goal, the official said, is ensuring that “everyone can have a realistic path to economic success and full employment.”

In addition to the visa program, federal agencies will be asked to review and minimize the use of waivers and exceptions to Buy American policies as well as assess the degree to which waivers included in free-trade agreements have hurt American workers.

[StolarStorm]

I'm currently unemployed as a result of "the cheap labor express." An outsourcing firm came in. FYI, they bribe the hell out of people to get these contracts, so it's not just about a perceived "cost savings." It's outright corruption in many cases.

Anyway, reducing h1-bs by itself is not going to fix the problem. These firms will just sell offshore staff instead. A tariff MUST be put on offshored services along with a reduction in h1-b program abuse.

[servantboy777]

I'm shocked at how many H1B’s are being brought into my corporation. Large computer hardware company. Leadership should be ashamed of themselves.

[Suz in AZ]

I think DACA has already been addressed by the immigration EO stating what criminality is. Criminals cannot be part of DACA. Hence, that protection is removed, essentially pulling people from the program without touching the program and causing a PR firestorm. Sneaky! :)

Register to vote: OUT
Use someone’s SSN: OUT
Receive welfare: OUT

[Lurkinanloomin]

Criminal records have always excluded people from DACA.
They are given their own SS# by the illegal program, so there is no need to have a fraudulent one.
The illegal program is continuing to operate as if it were law and not something dreamed up by Obama and should be ended.
No action by this administration makes it Trump’s illegal DACA program.

[Buckeye McFrog]

OPT is a much bigger problem IMO. For every H1 there are probably two dozen OPT’s here, many enrolled in fly-by-night diploma mills. They aren’t vetted to near the same degree as H1’s when they come. This is a back door left wide open for malefactors.

[NobleFree]

The law states, very plainly, that H1-B visas can NOT be used to replace American employees

From http://cis.org/miano/primer-reporters-looking-h-1b-program:

H-1B Is Designed to Allow Employers to Replace Americans with Cheap Foreign Workers

Replacing Americans with H-1B workers has been going on at least since 1994.

In 1998, Congress responded explicitly by making it legal for employers to replace Americans with H-1B workers. Under the current law an employer may replace an American with an H-1B worker unless:

1. The H-1B worker is paid less than $60,000; and
   
   
2. The H-1B worker does not have a graduate degree; and
   
   
3. The employer has more than 15 percent of its total employees on H-1B visas earning less than $60,000 and not having graduate degrees; and
   
   
4. The replacement takes place within 90 days of making the visa petition.

You have to navigate through two levels of misdirection in the code to piece all this together. Congress went to a lot of effort to ensure employers can replace Americans and to hide that fact from the casual reader of the code.

[ilovesarah2012]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-scandal-of-engineering-visas-20160226-column,amp.html

[Sam Gamgee]

Confused as to what this means? Is this just the start of an investigation that will reap legislative results at a later date?

[Vinnie]

I agree.
It irks me to see State, City large equipment from foreign countries.
Komatsu, Kubota, Hyundai, Kawasaki Purchased by US government, Fed, State, City.

You’d think of all purchasing entities, governments would buy American.

[Political Junkie Too]

We need to free the H1Bs to compete with the rest of us on equal terms...

Nonsense.

The H-1B is a temporary admittance visa; it's not a permanent alien residence status. There is no such thing as an "equal term" between a citizen and a foreigner here temporarily.

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

There is one aspect that is not addressed, which is that the work has to be temporary, too, otherwise why fill it with a temporary worker?

In the case of Disney, it is hard to call the job "temporary," when the incumbent was doing it for decades. If they were retraining their replacements, was the expectation that the replacement would repeatedly retrain their own replacements when their temporary visas were expiring, or would their visas be repeatedly extended, violating the "temporary" intent of the job being filled, and of the person filling it?

-PJ

[NobleFree]

It will apparently be a 220 day study. That takes it to the end of the year.

November 24, to be precise. (Assuming they mean calendar days; if it's working days, we're out to Feb. 20, 2018.)

[NobleFree]

Anybody heard any results from the 220-day review? I've been Googling and can find nothing.