Businesses brace for Trump decision on H-1B visas in wake of Sessions pick

Fox News.com ^ | November 25, 2016 | Adam Shaw

[Kaslin]

President-elect Donald Trump’s policies on illegal immigration, particularly on the border wall and cracking down on sanctuary cities, were at the center of his election campaign. Now, advocates of immigration restriction are hoping for reform to H-1B visas that they say are hurting American workers.

The H-1B is a temporary, non-immigrant visa, currently capped at 85,000 visas a year, that allows employers to hire skilled, specialty workers on a temporary basis -- particularly scientists, engineers, or computer programmers.

However, critics say that the system is rife with abuse, and is no longer a limited short-term program to help employers with unexpected labor shortages in niche areas, and has instead become a way to push out American workers in favor of cheap foreign labor.

“Because of lobbying by the Chamber of Commerce and big tech companies, they’ve succeeded in loosening standards and we’ve seen the increasingly common scenario where American workers are fired, and have to train their replacements,” Dan Stein, President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told FoxNews.com.

[farming pharmer]

The immigrants can get those, after they finish being H1Bs and become citizens.

It's unbelievably biased against white American kids, who have no Affirmative Action programs or quotas to give them parity with the immigrants or the minorities.

I couldn't agree with you more. I saw this in school in the early 90's and it's just gotten worse. The majority of discrimination goes against white males.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

You are absolutely correct. I have no problem with recruiting really good people into the system, in a manner that potentially expands ideas and creativity, but that's not what is happening. For federally funded research, I would personally put a strict limit on the percentage of any grant money that can be paid to non-citizens. We are supposed to be encouraging our own citizens to go into science, engineering, etc. - not using taxpayer money to fund mostly non-citizens. People will argue that Americans don't want to work for the amount of money that one makes as a post-doc. Well, if you had to limit the number of non-citizens that could be on a single federal grant, you would have to compete for American post-docs, likely leading to higher salaries. This would encourage more American participation and would promote the careers of more American scientists.

[NobleFree]

The H1B program was created to bring in the “best and brightest” foreign technical talent.

No, that's just how it was marketed.

"H-1B Is Designed to Allow Employers to Replace Americans with Cheap Foreign Workers [...] H-1B Is Designed to Allow Employers to Pay Foreign Workers Extremely Low Wages" - Primer For Reporters Looking Into the H-1B Program, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3306445/posts

[gunsequalfreedom]

With the elimination of H1-B visas should also come the elimination of “Diversity hiring.”

The idea is to get stuff passed, not create additional controversy that makes passage much more difficult.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Sadly Colleges and Universities will be reluctant to let go of these foreign students since they charge more for them in many cases.

True. But Trump does not have to allow them to continue rubber-stamping visas.

Here is a school that brings in a ton of F1 students. Many are Muslims. There are national security aspects to this as well.

https://www.mum.edu/

[glenduh]

“85,000” cap # is disingenuous. Doesn’t include cap exempt h1b numbers.

[Buckeye McFrog]

The original concept for the H1....going back five, six decades....was to facilitate the entry of high-end scientific and engineering talent.

It became a discussion topic after the mechanics of getting Werner Von Braun and his team through immigration to work on our missile and space programs proved extremely cumbersome.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The current use — to provide bread-and-butter programming staff — is a far cry from getting Von Braun in here.

[GaellicWarrior]

Sen. Sessions should visit Cisco Systems, Qualcomm or Intel and just walk through the buildings (unannounced). What you will see is 80 to 90 percent H1Bs, mostly Indian and Chinese. You may ask how is this possible? Easy. The H1Bs are now promoted to managerial and director levels and WILL NOT hire American works. I have been at these places and see it with my own eyes.

[NobleFree]

The original concept for the H1....going back five, six decades....was to facilitate the entry of high-end scientific and engineering talent.

By the time Congress got through with it, it was a cheap-foreign-labor bill.

[StolarStorm]

True. They discriminate with a vengeance. Seen it countless times and another incident just recently, a friend was demoted to make room for an inexperienced Indian... the head guy is an Indian.

They often have different "last names" but many in various groups are related. Found out that my last department had several Indians, all were cousins with different last names. They NEVER EVER mentioned that fact. Found out when overhearing them in the parking garage. Even one had the gall to hire his own wife (also had a different last name). Corp leadership did nothing. and, fyi, they all sucked at their jobs too.

[b4me]

It’s not just hiring shifts and such needed, businesses need a mind shift to stop thinking in terms of hiring certain people groups and learn to focus on quality and abilities of applicants for jobs.

We also need to have ways to train up skills and work ethic/work to be expected mindset in people not currently have those, but I don’t know how you help some one have a better work ethic. You can take away welfare etc but that still may not help some people understand need to actually do their best, not just show up and barely do enough. That’s where unions don’t help since I know some who were in unions and they worked so slow because they were only supposed to accomplish a certain amount per day.

Trump is an ahead of schedule and under budget kind of guy, not take your time and charge more type.

[b4me]

I can agree too, from experience working for a time in such a facility.

[Original Lurker]

I have a friend (I’ve known for 40+ years) who said the same thing (my friend’s a programmer - laid off a year ago). Indians only hire other Indians.

[353FMG]

>The H-1B is a temporary, non-immigrant visa, currently capped at 85,000 visas a year, that allows employers to hire skilled, specialty workers on a temporary basis — particularly scientists, engineers, or computer programmers.<

.
Thereby significantly reducing the number of American scientists and engineers that will be hired. Ask ANY employee of ANY engineering company (Bechtel, Fluor, Jacobs, Foster-Wheeler, KBR, etc.)

[trebb]

Yep - they’ve been flouting the law for a long time with Obama (and even Bush) rooting them on - Trump will restore the deal about laws having relevancy....scares a LOT of folks.

[NobleFree]

In 2015, Sessions sent round an “immigration handbook” to Republican members of Congress that calls immigration reform “a legislative honorific almost exclusively reserved for proposals which benefit everyone but actual American citizens.”

In that handbook and since, Sessions has railed against what he sees as the abuse of the program. In his handbook he cites statistics suggesting that guest workers make up two-thirds of all new IT hires, while half of Americans with STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic] degrees can’t find work. He says that while the cap is 85,000, the real number is much higher.

“But, due to overlapping admissions and other factors, the total number of H-1B workers physically present in the U.S. is actually much higher—it has been estimated to fall somewhere in the range of 650,000 to 750,000,” he wrote.

Thank God for men like Jeff Sessions.

[sunrise_sunset]

A lot of colleges depend on F1 Visa holders, because they are generally rich and pay full tuition.

[GailA]

Those who fit the job description who are Unemployed US CITIZENS SHOULD HAVE FIRST CRACK AT THESE JOBS! REGARDLESS OF AGE, AS 40 IS THE NEW 50.

ANY ONE GIVEN A HB1 SHOULD BE ABLE TO SPEAK PASSABLE ENGLISH AND BE PROFICIENT IN THE FIELD ESPECIALLY MEDICAL!

[GailA]

Step daughter got out of a business as their IT professional and opened her own just before it tanked, she is doing very well, and this should open up her business opportunities and allow her to hire an extra person at a decent wage.