Posted on 02/21/2020 12:38:49 PM PST by Theoria
The Trump administration plans to allow 45,000 additional seasonal guest workers to return to the U.S. this summer, the highest number since the president took office, according to three administration officials.
The Department of Homeland Security plans to announce the additional seasonal-worker visas next week, an administration official said. They will become available in two waves: the first 20,000 will be immediately available, while employers can apply for the remainder for jobs beginning June 1.
It wasn’t clear whether the White House has fully signed off on the numbers, and an administration official cautioned they could change.
The additional visas are being made available ahead of the summer, when demand for short-term work is typically highest.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf “has made no decision yet on the issue,” a DHS spokesperson said. “Any numbers reported on at this time are being pushed to press by junior staff who are not privy to all of the discussions taking place.”
The seasonal worker program, known as the H-2B visa program, enables U.S. employers to hire as many as 66,000 foreign workers a year, with the allotments split evenly between the winter and summer seasons. Congress permits the Department of Homeland Security each year to raise that cap by as many as 64,000 additional visas.
In Mr. Trump’s first two years in office, DHS raised the cap by 15,000 visas to 81,000, and last year it raised the cap by 30,000 to 96,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Bkmk for later review.
I'm ok with that, they're here legally and that's all that matters......
I’m OK with this if it’s truly all for purely seasonal work such as crab pickers on Maryland’s eastern shore or various service workers in the vicinity of Yellowstone National park.
No, it's not - legal foreign workers suppress wages for Americans.
The cap should be 0. Hire American!
“or various service workers in the vicinity of Yellowstone National park”
Crap on that. Talking to some guy from China in the Old Faithful Lodge cafeteria line is BS. Those jobs used to go to teenagers from Bozeman, Jackson and Livingston. They were called “savages” because they lived in the basement of the lodge while they worked there. My dad worked there in the mid-40’s.
Now the only people who are “Americans” are the Park Service people themselves. It’s CRAP. Plenty of American kids would love a summer job like that, the contractors simply don’t recruit them.
If they’re here legally AND they go home when the time is up I’m fine with that too.
But the number we’re at should be the ceiling... Americans can do American jobs. No more increases.
1. Employers can't find temporary workers during their peak summer season, partly because of #2 (below).
2. American kids who used to fill those jobs aren't interested in them, since they are more likely to be CUSTOMERS at these places.
Item #2 is really an interesting trend for me. As a senior manager who used to hire professionals regularly, I was astonished to see so many resumes from young adults in their mid-20s with impressive education credentials ... but who had never worked so much as even a part-time job in their lives.
Note to American college graduates: If you have a master's degree in a professional field and the job you're seeking at the age of 25 is going to be the first gainful employment of your life, you ain't getting hired by me.
Good. A lot of stuff, ranging from construction to harvesting, has been held up by lack of laborers. As long as they’re vetted and legal, it sounds like a great idea.
LOL! If you or your kid needs seasonal work cutting lawns, pruning bushes, picking lettuce, tomatoes, apples and oranges in the summers or working the chair lifts and waiting tables at ski resorts in the winter then I agree with you.
But since that's not likely the case, rant on because I don't agree with you.........LOL!
Lot of tomatoes grown where I now live. “Mexican Jimmy” was a fellow working for a local farmer and had the task of going to Mexico to recruit the help. They came for the season, and went home when the time came
He was also the enforcer if any of them got out of line while here. Nice guy, and his little round wife was an absolute sweetheart.
This was in the 90’s.
Clinton unlocked the gates, Bush took the gates off the hinges and Obama knocked the whole damn fence down
WTF? Just pay college students a little more.
Horrible plan.
Pay the American workers more. If it is prohibitive, there will be a natural market for automation.
We have stunted automation in ag, for example, with cheat imported labor, and also made the jobs less appealing, because illegal labor can’t complain.
No, it’s not all that matters.
LOL! If you or your kid needs seasonal work cutting lawns, pruning bushes, picking lettuce, tomatoes, apples and oranges in the summers or working the chair lifts and waiting tables at ski resorts in the winter then I agree with you.
The market wage for any job is the wage that gets it filled - Econ 101. The LOL is you not knowing this.
You and I are at the age where we can recognise work ethics. Kids now wont put their damn phones down. The snowflake culture is killing us.
They were ski "gypsies" of all ages whose sole goal in life was to ski and that meant taking advantage of free skiing for whatever resort they were employed with.
When the ski season ends in the U.S., they move on to another country where the ski season begins.
One waiter I encountered was approx. 45 years old and spent his life rotating from country to country, following the snow seasons. He was Australian and spoke English, German, French and Portuguese since he would spend ski seasons in Argentina............
Since we're talking about seasonal workers who obey the law, what else matters?
“he spoke English, German, French and Portuguese
since he would spend ski seasons in Argentina...”
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Argentina?
Probably should have learned Spanish...
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