Thread: Trump Plans 'Potential Pathway to Citizenship' for Foreign H-1B Workers John Binder

While we're on the subject, it appears Trump was also an abuser of the H-1B visas program prior to becoming President:


Trump Agency pays foreign model wages below poverty line

Mar18

by friendoftheimmigrant


Donald Trump has made several loud statements in opposition to immigration. In fact, on his website you can find a section titled “Put America’s Workers First,” with a subsection on increasing prevailing wages for H-1B’s. It’s a pretty typical move, but what Mr. Trump seems to have forgotten is that his own company, Trump Model Management, has been using the H-1B visa for years to lure in exotic models and pass them through the border without a hitch. He has hired roughly 30 foreign models in the past 8 years.

The basis of an H-1B visa is to have workers from foreign countries come to America only after a specific company requests them personally, promises to pay a certain wage, and goes through the paperwork process through the USCIS and Department of Labor. Trump’s agency went through all of the steps, but as model Alexia Palmer, a recipient of Trump’s “generosity” points out, they do not always keep up their end of the bargain.
The company petitioning for the H-1B visa on behalf of the foreign employee must pay the employee either the promised amount submitted on the application or the “prevailing wage” as determined by the Department of Labor, whichever is higher. The prevailing wage is the lowest amount the employee can be paid. Trump’s agency stated on their application, which is signed under penalty of perjury, that Palmer would be paid $75,000 per year. The prevailing wage was $45,000. The reality of the situation? Palmer was paid roughly $30,000…in a total of three years. Even if, as Trump’s spokespeople have stated, Palmer did not bring in the number of jobs they’d hoped for, the agency is still legally required to pay her the $75,000 a year. They not only broke the law, they paid an immigrant who is legally bound to work for only Trump Model management as a condition of her visa a wage below the poverty line ($11,770/yr as of 2015). And so begins the lawsuit.



So Trump fudged some paperwork, it’s been said that the number given was a “guesstimate,” and this woman is barely being paid enough to live in the US. Now Trump has the audacity to put on his website that the US should “increase prevailing wages for H-1Bs” When he himself doesn’t pay the current prevailing wage? If he thinks people will pay a higher prevailing wage as a way to put more Americans to work, he should really look in a mirror. Increasing the prevailing wage will almost certainly cause more people to “fudge” on the application and then just pay whatever they want to pay, just as Trump did. This is not an isolated instance and is actually common with these types of visas. These occurrences are likely to grow once the prevailing wage is higher. So what do you think about his H-1B plan? Leave your comments below.

Original CNN story
Trump’s site on Immigration Reform
Written by: Bailey Nunez

https://friendoftheimmigrant.wordpre...overty-line-2/

SHUT THE WHOLE PROGRAM DOWN!

WE HAVE OUR OWN BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE AND OUR OWN "BEST AND BRIGHTEST"!

Trump's actual words without the spin.


“H1-B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.”


H1B News: Trump Tweet Promises Changes for Visa Holders


William White
InvestorPlace January 11, 2019

President Donald Trump has some H1B news for those holding these visas in the U.S.


H1B News: Trump Tweet Promises Changes for Visa Holders More
Source: Shutterstock

The H1B news from President Donald Trump comes in a Tweet from his personal Twitter(NYSE:TWTR) account.
It reads as follows.

“H1-B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.”

While this H1B news is good for holders of the visas, there are some arguments over it.

This includes the following responses to President Trump’s Tweet about the changes.

• “So if you are smart you are allowed in, but if you are fleeing for your life and your children’s lives, you have to stay on the other side of your imaginary wall? I commend you continuing the H1-B, but trying to act all high and mighty over this is a joke.”
• “Mr. President, what about American tech workers who are being displaced by H-1B guest workers and recent college grads who can’t find jobs in STEM fields? American workers are truly the best and brightest. You pledged to put American workers first. This isn’t it.”
• “Legal immigration is a bedrock of American success story in the world. Immigration dialog in political sphere grossly mistreat the legal professional immigration issues. I’m glad our President is looking into this important aspect of the immigration. Separate Iillegal and legal.”

This isn’t the first time that President Trump has announced H1B news. The President made other changes back in 2017 that made it more difficult for some workers to come to the U.S. via the H1B program.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/h1b-n...172317125.html

This isn’t the first time that President Trump has announced H1B news. The President made other changes back in 2017 that made it more difficult for some workers to come to the U.S. via the H1B program.

Yes, Trump made it very difficult because the employers can't cheat any more which reduced the number of companies using H1B's. He also has increased the vetting for those coming in resulting in a reduction of the number of people coming in on H1B visas. This next change will make the H1B of even less value to employers. H1B is driven by employer applications, not workers. You'll see when the new regulation comes out.

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@realDonaldTrump

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H1-B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.

4:40 AM - 11 Jan 2019

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How to get US citizenship with H1B visa? How long does it take - Quora
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-U...long-does-it-t...
Aug 5, 2017 - If you have an H-1B visa, your first priority should be to get your greencard (i.e. permanent ... that leads to permanent residence, which then leads to citizenship.


How do I get US citizenship with H1B visa? How long does it take?





Tal Reichert, immigrant
Answered Mar 17, 2014 · Author has 868 answers and 2.7m answer views


You don't. You can only apply for a greencard through H-1B.
Five years after that, you can become a citizen.

If you have an H-1B visa, your first priority should be to get your greencard (i.e. permanent residency). Unfortunately, you cannot apply for that yourself, you need to be sponsored by your employer on a three-phase process:
1. Your employer needs to get a labor certificate from the Department of Labor through a process called PERM. This is to show that the US economy is indeed in need of people of your skills, that your skills are in demand and suitable candidates are hard to come by.
2. Your employer needs to apply to make your temporary position a permanent one, and the USCIS needs to approve of that. That is done via form I-140.
3. You need to change your status from a non-immigrant to an immigrant, that is done through adjustment of status using form I-485.

There are different priority levels for the application, these dictate the availability of visas and the requirements from the applicant. These are marked EB-1 through EB-5 - Look at the USCIS page on Permanent Workers or consult with an immigration lawyer (you'll need one anyway, literally no one files for employment-based greencard without a lawyer).

That lengthy process does not exclude the other alternatives for receiving a greencard, e.g. the diversity lottery or family-based greencard (most commonly through marriage to a US citizen).

Once you earned your greencard one way or another, you are a permanent resident of the United States.

Now you wait.

After five years of continuously living in the US as a permanent resident, at least half of which you were physically present in the US, you can apply to be naturalized as a US citizen.

33k Views · View 24 Upvoters

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-U...g-does-it-take

"certainty" = bad for employers

The current uncertainty in the move from an H1B visa to a green card allows employers to exploit these workers while discriminating against American Workers for years and years and years, even decades.

As soon as the H1B worker gets their green card, they're free from the limbo that employers exploit which depresses wages.

Also when the H1B worker moves to the green card, the employers not only no longer have exploitation wages of the workers which hurts American Workers, they no longer have the tax incentives which is unfair to taxpayers and American Workers who have to pay taxes. These H1B workers are also exempt from overtime. No one ever talks about that.

Trump is going to try to expedite and simplify the move from the H1B visa to a green card, something they are already entitled to under current US law, but which in practice, drags out for 10 to 12 years or more because they wait in line. When he makes it easier and quicker to move to a green card, this hurts the employer and discourages use of the program.

So far, there are not enough votes in Congress to eliminate the H1B program so what Trump is doing is trying to make it as hard, difficult, costly, cumbersome and unattractive to employers as possible through new regulations so they stop using it. When employers stop using it, it's over, because it's the employers who actually make the applications for H1B workers.

Originally Posted by Judy

"certainty" = bad for employers

The current uncertainty in the move from an H1B visa to a green card allows employers to exploit these workers while discriminating against American Workers for years and years and years, even decades.

As soon as the H1B worker gets their green card, they're free from the limbo that employers exploit which depresses wages.

Also when the H1B worker moves to the green card, the employers not only no longer have exploitation wages of the workers which hurts American Workers, they no longer have the tax incentives which is unfair to taxpayers and American Workers who have to pay taxes. These H1B workers are also exempt from overtime. No one ever talks about that.

Trump is going to try to expedite and simplify the move from the H1B visa to a green card, something they are already entitled to under current US law, but which in practice, drags out for 10 to 12 years or more because they wait in line. When he makes it easier and quicker to move to a green card, this hurts the employer and discourages use of the program.

So far, there are not enough votes in Congress to eliminate the H1B program so what Trump is doing is trying to make it as hard, difficult, costly, cumbersome and unattractive to employers as possible through new regulations so they stop using it. When employers stop using it, it's over, because it's the employers who actually make the applications for H1B workers.

I forgot to mention the other advantage of what Trump is doing. The more quickly H1B workers already here for years, self-sustaining, middle income or above income earners move to green card status, the more green cards that are used up with people who are already here supporting themselves without welfare, and the less overall new immigration especially uneducated poverty ridden welfare sucking chain migration associated with the green card program, so he's cutting legal immigration in two ways, reducing green card migration as well as reducing use of the H1B program. This was all in his campaign documents, it was in the DACA deal which failed, so this is simply moving the ball forward through regulatory changes instead of by act of Congress which Congress isn't able to do, because Republicans don't have enough seats to get the votes to pass a bill to fix anything with our immigration system.

JohnDoe2 wrote (excerpt):

Trump's actual words without the spin.

Yep, well, someone we both know is spinning it like a top now!

Trump is doing this to help corporations and businesses. Any attempt to spin the facts to suggest otherwise is disingenuous. He has sold out on his campaign promise.

Rule of Law = Green Card Holder = American Worker

American Worker = No Foreign Worker Advantage for Corporations or Businesses

Trump H1B Changes = Helping American Workers, Not Corporations or Businesses

The End.