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  1. #1
    Senior Member SOSADFORUS's Avatar
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    Sec. of Labor changes H-2B visa's

    Just reported by Lou Dobbs.....

    Sec. of Labor Ms.Chao has changed the rules herself today on H-2B visa's from 10 months to 3 year visa's and not only that businesses do not have to prove they need them....

    How the hell can she get away with this!
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  2. #2
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    without the approval of Congress or the American Citizens ...

    IMPEACH BUSH NOW ..... and throw his corrupt minions into the darkest prison possible until the trials for TREASON AND SEDITION begin ... and it cant begin soon enough as far as I am concerned
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  3. #3
    Senior Member dragonfire's Avatar
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    My My, Who says the government offices aren’t filled with activist. We ave Mary Peters defying congress on Mexican truckers. We have the Hispanic caucus lobbying for open borders. Now we have Sec. of Labor Ms.Chow just changing the rule as she pleases without congressional input. Time for an investigation ya think. Maybe looking into her overstepping her authority.
    Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

  4. #4
    Senior Member SOSADFORUS's Avatar
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    New temporary worker visa procedures to cut bureaucracy
    The Department of Labor is rewriting H2B rules to help employers find and hire immigrant workers more quickly and efficiently than current guidelines allow.
    By Nicole Gaouette
    Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

    May 22, 2008

    WASHINGTON — With restaurants and resorts facing summer staff shortages, the Bush administration will announce federal regulations today to streamline the way foreign workers enter the country for seasonal jobs.

    The Department of Labor is rewriting rules to help employers find and hire workers for temporary jobs as landscapers, waitresses and crab pickers more quickly and efficiently than current guidelines allow.

    In one major change affecting industries such as construction and shipyards, the definition of "temporary" will be drastically expanded -- from the current 10 months to three years.

    Adjusting the so-called H2B visa program is part of an ongoing administration effort to reconfigure immigration laws on a piecemeal basis in the absence of a comprehensive overhaul.

    Last year, an attempt to remake the nation's immigration laws collapsed in Congress amid conservative anger over proposals to grant legal status to many illegal immigrants currently in the country.

    A frustrated President Bush, who had favored the overhaul, responded with a 28-point plan to tighten enforcement at the border and in the workplace -- moves largely meant to placate conservative Republicans. That has led to more aggressive immigration raids and an even greater shortage of workers.

    But in an effort to aid businesses, Bush also outlined plans to simplify existing visa programs for foreign farmworkers, highly skilled professionals and the short-term workers from all over the world who enter the country with H2B visas.

    There are limits, however, to the administration's ability to change the seasonal visa program, especially in one crucial area: the number of visas available.

    Employers consider the 66,000 new visas offered every year to be woefully inadequate, and efforts to expand the H2B visa program have been stymied in Congress. So federal officials hope that by smoothing out the procedures, some of the difficulties businesses are having in filling jobs with foreign workers will be eased.

    Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in an interview with The Times that the changes being announced today would cut down bureaucratic delays.

    "Use of the program has increased in recent years, but duplicative requirements have . . . [meant] employers have failed to get workers in a timely fashion," Chao said.

    And allowing shipyards and construction firms to bring workers in for three years, Chao said, would help those industries remain competitive in a global market.

    "Sometimes temporary work is not confined to one year," she said.

    The new rules also are meant to protect American workers, she said. Foreign workers will have to reapply annually and labor markets will be tested yearly to ensure there are no able and available U.S. workers for the jobs, Chao explained.

    "We're trying to be very judicious and make sure we are doing this in a careful way," she said.

    But critics who would like to see tighter restrictions on immigration argue that the H2B visa program should be shut down.

    "The administration is trying in the only way it can to respond to business pressure," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He argued that if employers paid high enough wages, Americans would take these jobs.

    "Why do we even have such a program?" Krikorian asked. "Employers are never satisfied with how cheap labor is."

    The seasonal visa program received added negative attention recently when several Indian workers went on a hunger strike to protest their treatment at a Mississippi shipyard. One of the H2B workers was hospitalized this week.

    For employers like Matt Edmundson, whose Arbor Valley Nursery in Brighton, Colo., has 21 H2B workers, any changes that simplify the program are welcome.

    "It's getting more and more difficult to function," said Edmundson, who recently began checking all of his job applicants' eligibility. "We found less than 2% of our applicants are eligible to work. Right now, if I didn't have the H2B laborers that I have this year, I would be in a really big pinch."

    Few California employers have used the program partly because of the bureaucratic requirements, said Kevin Johnson, a law professor at UC Davis who writes about immigration issues.

    "Easing some of the requirements on employers will make it much more likely that California will use the program," Johnson said. "I think it could have a sizable impact in the state."

    The Department of Labor is proposing to speed the visa process by allowing employers to file applications directly to the federal government, cutting a current requirement that applications first go to a state workforce agency. Employers no longer will have to fill out paperwork showing that they have complied fully with program requirements. Instead they will be able to attest, under threat of penalties and fines, that they are complying.

    Companies would be barred from passing on any program expenses to workers, including recruitment costs or attorney's fees. Labor officials will begin an auditing program to make sure employers are following the rules; those who don't face fines of as much as $10,000.

    Lawmakers have been deadlocked for months over making revisions to the H2B visa program. A temporary extension had allowed workers already here on H2B visas to return to their U.S. jobs without being subject to the 66,000 cap. Since that exemption expired in September, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has blocked bipartisan attempts to extend it.

    Caucus members argue that piecemeal efforts to deal with immigration make broad reform less likely.

    Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) thwarted an attempt Tuesday by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to increase the number of H2B visas.

    "The provisions [in the proposed legislation] did everything for business and nothing for hardworking families," Menendez said. "The sooner the business community understands that it must join us in promoting relief for families as well as business, the sooner we will succeed in beginning to reform our broken immigration system."

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 7981.story
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  5. #5
    Senior Member Populist's Avatar
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    Bad:

    In one major change affecting industries such as construction and shipyards, the definition of "temporary" will be drastically expanded -- from the current 10 months to three years.
    Good:

    There are limits, however, to the administration's ability to change the seasonal visa program, especially in one crucial area: the number of visas available.

    Employers consider the 66,000 new visas offered every year to be woefully inadequate, and efforts to expand the H2B visa program have been stymied in Congress.
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  6. #6
    Senior Member dragonfire's Avatar
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    So are we just screwed or is there any recourse. Sounds like a done deal.
    Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

  7. #7
    Senior Member SOSADFORUS's Avatar
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    Well if we go by what Mary Peters did with the Mexican truck program and got away with it I'd say we are screwed! congress doesn't give a damn...these people seem to go by their own rules and congress allows it!
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  8. #8
    Senior Member Populist's Avatar
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    The period for public comment will close July 7.

    -------

    U.S. Department of Labor Proposes Rules to Modernize and Increase Protections Under H-2B program

    WASHINGTON, May 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Labor today proposed rules to modernize the application process and enhance worker protections under the H-2B temporary labor certification program.

    The changes respond to the administration's Aug. 10, 2007, promise to
    review and update foreign worker program regulations.

    "These proposed improvements will give the department additional tools
    to protect workers and remove duplicative bureaucracy," said Secretary of
    Labor Elaine L. Chao.

    When a shortage of U.S. workers is demonstrated, the H-2B program makes it possible for employers to apply for temporary, non-agricultural foreign workers to fill their temporary or seasonal needs.

    The proposed rule would reform the application process so that
    employers would attest, under threat of fines and other penalties, that
    they have complied with all the program's requirements. These proposals
    would alter the current certification process, following a model similar to
    that adopted in the successful re-engineering of the permanent labor
    certification program in 2005. The proposed rule also would eliminate
    duplication of effort by state workforce agencies (SWAs) and the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration (ETA).

    Instead of applying first with their SWAs, employers would file their H-2B
    applications directly with ETA under the proposed process. Furthermore,
    employers would obtain from the Labor Department instead of SWAs the
    applicable prevailing wage determinations for their specific job
    opportunities.

    In addition, the department seeks to enhance protections for U.S. and
    foreign workers. For instance, employers would be prohibited from passing
    along application and other costs to foreign workers participating in the
    H-2B program. The Department of Labor also proposes to debar for up to
    three years employers, attorneys and agents found to have committed fraud or willful misrepresentation concerning the H-2B employment-based
    immigration program, or failed to cooperate in Labor Department audits or
    investigations.

    Finally, the proposal contains a new Department of Labor enforcement
    program for H-2B in the event the Department of Homeland Security delegates its statutory authority for enforcing the H-2B program to the Department of Labor. Congress vested the Department of Homeland Security with H-2Benforcement authority in 2005.

    The proposed rule appears in today's edition of the Federal Register
    and can be found at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-11214.pdf.

    The period for public comment will close July 7.

    U.S. Department of Labor releases are accessible on the Internet at
    http://www.dol.gov. The information in this news release will be made available in alternate format (large print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the COASToffice upon request. Please specify which news release when placing your request at 202-693-7828 or TTY 202-693-7755. The Labor Department iscommitted to providing America's employers and employees with easy access to understandable information on how to comply with its laws andregulations. For more information, please visit http://www.dol.gov/compliance.

    SOURCE U.S. Department of Labor

    http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stori ... 648&EDATE=
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  9. #9
    Senior Member dragonfire's Avatar
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    So this is only proposed Comments close on July 7. Looks like time to mail bomb on this. This policy change needs to see the light of day and some open congressional discussion.
    Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

  10. #10
    Senior Member SOSADFORUS's Avatar
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    They pull this concern for public opinion or attention and then ignore it, this will go through unless congress stops it....I just e-mail the above article to congress with my opinion and I was not happy.

    We just spent days fighting this and the same day she comes out and basically tell us and congress to go to hell!
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