DHS Chooses Late Friday Afternoon To Announce 15,000 More H-2B Visas

Center for Immigration Studies ^ | 25 May 2018 | David North

[zeestephen]

The Department of Homeland Security announced at 3:46 pm today [Friday] that it will allow various U.S. employers 15,000 additional H-2B workers this summer; they will do unskilled, non-agricultural seasonal work...The 15,000 will be in addition to the 66,000 permits in this program that have already been issued in keeping with the long-standing statutory ceiling.

[small farm girl]

What happens in mid-August when all the kids go back to school?

[central_va]

Drew you are an economic idiot if you ACTUALLY think doubling LABOR costs equates to the doubling the retail price of produce. Do you really think that! LOL.

[jiggyboy]

I note this is for the summer so it appears this is for crops etc.

No. Per the article, these are for "unskilled, non-agricultural work". When you see teenagers from Europe as waiters and waitresses at Tony Roma's, or in the food booths at the Boardwalk (NJ and Santa Cruz both), this is how it happens.

I'll say it again, it is economically impossible to fly somebody over here from Europe and house them for a summer-wage job. Trump is really dropping the ball hire.

[jiggyboy]

I note this is for the summer so it appears this is for crops etc.

No. Per the article, these are for "unskilled, non-agricultural work". When you see teenagers from Europe as waiters and waitresses at Tony Roma's, or in the food booths at the Boardwalk (NJ and Santa Cruz both), this is how it happens.

I'll say it again, it is economically impossible to fly somebody over here from Europe and house them for a summer-wage job. Trump is really dropping the ball hire.

[VRW Conspirator]

How many of the H2B’s will be working at the DHS?

[small farm girl]

H2B is non agricultural workers, H2A is ag. If H2B runs like H2A, these people are all vetted, cleared by medical, have to go home by their end of work date. We had a guy miss his connecting flight in FL on way back to Jamaica and got a call within an hour, he was on next flight. It’s not true they stay and disappear. These are work visas, not travel visas (like so many illegals in MA).
Other things,to note, if they have one violation up here, they are kicked out of the program, they also pay taxes on their wages without representation, they cannot stay longer than 7 months, etc...
These are not H1 jobs, just saying.

[central_va]

Hey small farm girl this is agricultural welfare. No other way to put it.

[small farm girl]

Give it a rest central_va; you have officially established yourself as the authority on running businesses and farming. We are still talking H2B here, so calm yourself.

[central_va]

You calm yourself. All of the labor BS is steeped in lies.

[SharpRightTurn]

There seems to be no way to end this nonsense. It’s obvious the politicians are listening to the business lobbyists rather than the citizenry.

[DoodleDawg]

The "depend" on them so they can pay depressed and artificially low wages.

Bingo.

[Drew68]

Drew you are an economic idiot if you ACTUALLY think doubling LABOR costs equates to the doubling the retail price of produce. Do you really think that! LOL.

It doesn't?

Wow! Seattle would love to hear this!

[oincobx]

An analysis of hiring records for seasonal workers at three Trump properties in New York and Florida revealed that only one out of 144 jobs went to a US worker from 2016 to the end of 2017. Foreign guest workers with H-2B visas got the rest.

https://www.vox.com/2018/2/13/16466542/trump-h-2b-guest-workers

[central_va]

H-2b visas are used for agriculture. Take lettuce for example.

This is the study from Washington State University. This is the cost per acre for picking lettuce:

Packing:

Packing labor hour $12.00 x 300 hrs = $3,600.00 Packing by hand

Cartons 24 ct carton $2.80 X 813 = $2,275.00

There are 24 heads per box so 813 boxes times 24 = 19,512 heads/acre. The labor per acre is $3,600 so the PER HEAD cost of labor is a whopping $0.19 or 19 cents.

So DOUBLING the labor cost to $24.00/hr makes the per head cost go up 19 cents. When you pay a buck per head it would now cost $1.19. THIS IS NOT DOUBLING THE COST. It is a 19% ONE-TIME increase.

My point is you would have to Double labor rates to attarct Americans.

[IndispensableDestiny]

Hopefully some of these jobs are going to the crab picking houses. They have relied on H2B workers for years for these seasonal jobs. The same workers come back every year and go home again at the end of the season.

Crab picking was once the domain of Eastern Shore black women. When large numbers of Vietnamese showed up, their women took over the job. The Vietnamese produced more per person, had less spoiled product, showed up, and made the picking houses lots of money.

The Vietnamese eventually moved up in the world and out. Black women were not coming back, not that the picking houses wanted them back. Seasonal workers were the answer. They come to work, pick, go home, and come back the next day. Come late fall, the go back to their native countries.

[faithhopecharity]

Can happen tes. But high tech not so much really. Some well- known large “Americsn” hi tech corporations have discriminated against hiring some American high tech graduates, some very very well qualified top of class with graduate degrees - even not letting them interview even —- preferring to recruit and import foreigners for the jobs. This abuse is very well known and has been allowed to continue for many years. One reason we hear about some efforts to encourage more American students to sign up for engineering and science majors is that the kids aren’t stupid. They don’t want to take a difficult courses of study only to be denied interviews when they graduate. Ps;. The corporations pay 💰 Washington a ton of money to be allowed to go this.

[faithhopecharity]

Oh my! So sorry to hear.

[V K Lee]

Thanks for clarification. So noted :-)

[caww]

Thank you.

[caww]

The article reads..”they will do unskilled, non-agricultural seasonal work.”