Thread: OR: Rep. DeFazio to Napolitano--Tighten H-2B rules

Rep. Peter DeFazio demands tighter rules, tougher oversight of foreign worker program


WASHINGTON -- Rep. Peter DeFazio demanded Tuesday that the federal Department of Labor add muscular - and clear - new provisions to a guest-worker program that was used to hire foreign workers for forest jobs in Oregon intended for unemployed U.S. citizens.

"Over the past year it has come to light that several contractors exploited loopholes in the H-2B visa process to intentionally hire foreign workers, rather than available Americans, for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded jobs on Forest Service lands in Oregon. This is unacceptable," DeFazio said in a letter sent Tuesday to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

The letter came less than a week after the department's inspector general released a report about the contracts and the fact that 254 foreign workers were hired to perform work that most believed should have been filled by unemployed Americans.

"Taxpayer money was spent to hire foreign workers while unemployed Oregonians were denied these jobs. The Department of Labor owes it to the American taxpayer and the over 13 million unemployed Americans to make sure this can never occur again," the letter says.

The department has proposed new rules for the H-2B visa program but DeFazio said he wants assurances that the changes will be muscular and tightly enforced.

As currently designed, the program is riddled with loopholes that allow employers to bring in 66,000 workers for temporary, non-agriculture jobs each year. Once a worker qualifies for H-2B status that worker does not count against the next year's quota so the actual number of foreign workers brought to the United States to work each year is much higher. The program was originally designed to provide labor for jobs that U.S. citiziens did not want or local businesses could not fill.

But the case involving contracts to clear U.S. Forest Service property highlighted the gaping loopholes in the program. One of the biggest is notification. Under law, companies must advertise the job openings and if U.S. workers do not respond they then are allowed to look offshore. But the law says the advertisements must be published where the job "originates." In the Oregon case, a small number of jobs originated outside Oregon, which is where the ads ran in tiny newspapers.

DeFazio told Solis in his letter that that requirement must change to require that ads run in every state where the jobs are actually based. "There has to be meaningful advertisements in every state and they shouldn't be allowed to only use the most obscure, lowest circulation weekly newpaper they can find," DeFazio said in an interview.

Nor was the state department of labor notified of the jobs, another loophole that DeFazio says must be closed. His letter demands that the state labor agencies be alerted when jobs are available in the state, even if the company controlling the jobs is based somewhere else.

Finally, because the jobs are temporary DeFazio says new regulations should require advertisements and recruitment closer to the actual start date than is currently allowed. Under rules now in place, the jobs can be offered four months before work is to begin, a gap that deters many qualified unemployed workers from pursuing jobs.

"The system has been gamed for years," DeFazio said. But the Oregon contracts which eventually led to 254 foreign workers to be hired at time when the state's unemployment rate was 11 percent at a cost of $7 million "was the most egregious gaming of the system anyone has seen," he said in an interview.

The Department of Labor, which did not respond to a request for an interview, published draft regulations in March to collect public comment. In a news release accompanying the notice, the department said the changes were designed to "ensure that U.S. workers receive the same level of protections and benefits as temporary foreign workers recruited under the H-2B program, and to provide better access for employers with legitimate labor needs."

DeFazio said he presonally raised the issue with Solis, who served with him as a member of Congress from California before becoming Labor Secretary. DeFazio said he wants to keep pressure on the department to follow through on reforms so there will be no additional cases where tax dollars designed to hire unemployed Americans are used instead to hire workers from other countries. DeFazio called that, "stupendously outrageous."

In the Oregon case, contracts in the amount of $7 million were approved to clear and clean federal forests in central Oregon at a time when local unemployment was nearly 15 percent. Local officials said there where thousands of experienced workers were idle who could fill the need. When the contracts were announced in 2009, Oregon had the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11.1 percent.

Even so, the contractors told federal regulators they could not find enough local workers for the jobs.

The federal investigation looked at 14 contracts to clear federal forests in central Oregon. The contracts were controlled by four Oregon companies: Medford Cutting Edge Forestry, Summitt Forestry, Ponderosa Reforestations, and G.E. Forestry. All hired foreign workers, according to the report, though they didn't all handle hiring in the same way.

While legal, the hiring practices appear to violate the spirit and purpose of the $840 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus, which was designed to create jobs that would jumpstart the country out of recession.

The federal investigation looked at 14 contracts to clear federal forests in central Oregon. The contracts were controlled by four Oregon companies: Medford Cutting Edge Forestry, Summitt Forestry, Ponderosa Reforestations, and G.E. Forestry. All hired foreign workers, according to the report, though they didn't all handle hiring in the same way. None of the companies responded to requests for interviews.

The contractors applied for H-2B visas allowing them to hire workers for seasonal jobs, according to the report. In order to get clearance, contractors must prove the jobs can't be filled with local residents and that pay won't dilute local prevailing wages.

-- Charles Pope

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/inde ... st_52.html

Where did you get this from? How about the URL?

Also I think that any money from government like stimulus should specify US CITIZENS ONLY and make mandatory E-VERIFY

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/inde ... st_52.html

I watched Napolitano and the hearings on tv. The looks she gave the senators were like daggers since they were questioning ICE, BP HS and the back door amnesty policy. She had her nose stuck up in the air so much I am suprised she didn't get a comercial airliner caught in it. She claimed ICE cannot deport more than 400,000 illegals a year due to funding. She also stated when she was hired that she would have her departments go after criminals who were dangerous and deport them, that left the run of the mill illegals free to break the law. She said there is NO back door amnesty policy in effect. After awhile I had to go take some pepto as my stomach was about to hurl my diner after seeing her and hearing her lies.

Added to Homepage with amended title--

http://www.alipac.us/article-6716--0-0.html