DHS Chad Wolf: No Extra H-2B Workers as Agency Protects Blue-Collar Jobs

Breitbart ^ | 12 May 2020 | NEIL MUNRO

[NobleFree]

The federal government will not provide companies with extra H-2B visa workers this year, homeland security chief Chad Wolf told Breitbart News.

The decision is good news for blue-collar Americans, who have lost millions of jobs amid the coronavirus crash, and it comes despite pressure from many companies for easy access to compliant foreign labor.

The decision comes as the migration of blue-collar workers across the Mexican border slows to a trickle, mostly because of President Donald Trump’s forceful diplomatic and regulatory policies.

“We do not expect to increase the [66,000] cap given the pandemic and the unemployment,” the Acting Secretary told Breitbart News.

In the 2020 federal budget, Congress allowed and prodded agency officials to accept a supplemental army of roughly 35,0000 H-2B workers in 2020. But “we don’t anticipate having any supplemental increase in H-2Bs this year,” he said.

However, agency officials will make it easier for some H-2B workers already in the United States to transfer into the seafood industry in Maryland, Alaska, Maine, and Virginia, he added. “We are trying to identify [H-2B] workers who are already here and providing some flexibility,” he said.

At the border, Wolf said, blue-collar migration has fallen so fast that the agency’s holding centers are nearly empty.

“We are seeing 80 percent of folks are being turned around [back to Mexico] in two hours, and that is having a huge effect on our custody numbers,” Wolf said. In Tuscon, Ariz., for example, only about 15 migrants are being held in the temporary holding centers, down from roughly 650 in 2019, he said. […]

Construction of the border wall should reach 200 miles in early June, he added.

Trump’s jobs-for-Americans policy is very popular, according to multiple polls. […]

[NobleFree]

More winning!

[Mariner]

this is a bullshit distraction.

There are still 66,000 H2Bs coming in this year while US unemployment is likely to exceed 25%.

Not to mention the 85,000 H-1Bs per year.

And none of them ever seem to leave.

[TheConservativeTejano]

this is a bullshit distraction. There are still 66,000 H2Bs coming in this year while US unemployment is likely to exceed 25%. Not to mention the 85,000 H-1Bs per year. And none of them ever seem to leave.

Partner, u could not have said this better!

The folks who write this stuff are not listening to "We the People" and we are sick and tired of listening to this HIB visas and H2B visas. I do not even want to hear about this while we need Americans working no matter if they are Blue Collar jobs or White Collar jobs.

Also you are very correct in saying that the Illegal Alien H1B visa holders and H2B visa holders never ever leave this great country of ours. The answer is quite obvious since they do not want to go back to their 3rd world Excrement Hole country.

This should not happen and I agree that this is total Bravo Sierra on whomever wrote this bill in Congress.