Trump order would target high skilled worker visa program

Trump order would target high skilled worker visa program

By catherine lucey and scott bauer, associated press

WASHINGTON — Apr 17, 2017, 9:45 PM ET

President Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order that seeks to make changes to a visa program that brings in high-skilled workers.

Trump is heading Tuesday to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he plans to sign an order dubbed "Buy American, Hire American," said administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity despite the president's frequent criticism of the use of anonymous sources.

The officials said the order, which Trump will sign at the headquarters of tool manufacturer Snap-on Inc., would direct the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Labor and State to propose new rules to prevent immigration fraud and abuse. Those departments would also be asked to offer changes so that H-1B visas are awarded to the "most-skilled or highest-paid applicants."

The White House said the program is currently undercutting American workers by bringing in cheaper labor and said some tech companies are using it to hire large numbers of workers and drive down wages.

Administration officials said the order also seeks to strengthen requirements that American-made products be used in certain federal construction projects, as well as in various federal transportation grant-funded projects. The officials said the commerce secretary will review how to close loopholes in enforcing the existing rules and provide recommendations to the president.

The order specifically asks the secretary to review waivers of these rules that exist in free-trade agreements. The administration said that if the waivers are not benefiting the United States they will be "renegotiated or revoked."

During his campaign, Trump said at some points he supported high-skilled visas, then came out against them. At one debate, he called for fully ending the program, saying: "It's very bad for our workers and it's unfair for our workers. And we should end it."

The officials said the changes could be administrative or legislative and could include higher fees for the visas, changing the wage scale for the program or other initiatives.

About 85,000 H-1B visas are distributed annually by lottery. Many go to technology companies, which argue that the United States has a shortage of skilled technology workers.

But critics say the program has been hijacked by staffing companies that use the visas to import foreigners — often from India — who will work for less than Americans. The staffing companies then sell their services to corporate clients who use them to outsource tech work.

Employers from Walt Disney World to the University of California in San Francisco have laid off their tech employees and replaced them with H-1B visa holders. Adding to the indignity: The U.S. workers are sometimes asked to train their replacements to qualify for severance packages.

On the planned order by Trump, Ronil Hira, a professor in public policy at Howard University and a critic of the H-1B program, said, "It's better than nothing." But he added, "It's not as aggressive as it needs to be."

The tech industry has argued that the H-1B program is needed because it encourages students to stay in the U.S. after getting degrees in high-tech specialties — and they can't always find enough American workers with the skills they need.

Congress is considering several bills to overhaul the visa program. One, introduced by Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, would require companies seeking H-1B visas to first make a good-faith effort to hire Americans, a requirement many companies can dodge under the current system; give the Labor Department more power to investigate and sanction H-1B abuses; and give "the best and brightest" foreign students studying in the U.S. priority in getting H-1B visas.

Trump's stop at the world headquarters of Snap-on Inc. would come as the president faces an approval rating of just 41 percent in Wisconsin, a state he barely won in November. The visit also would take him to the congressional district of House Speaker Paul Ryan, who won't be joining the president because he's on a bipartisan congressional trip visiting NATO countries.

Trump has traveled to promote his agenda less than his recent predecessors. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump wanted to visit "a company that builds American-made tools with American workers."

Trump carried Wisconsin in November by nearly 23,000 votes — less than 1 percentage point — making him the first Republican to win the state since 1984. He campaigned on the promise of returning manufacturing jobs that have been lost in Upper Midwest states.

Founded in Wisconsin in 1920, Snap-on makes hand and power tools, diagnostics software, information and management systems, and shop equipment for use in a variety of industries, including agriculture, the military and aviation. Its headquarters are in Kenosha and it has eight manufacturing sites in North America, including one in Milwaukee. The company employs about 11,000 people worldwide.

Associated Press writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wir...ogram-46852279

Trump to sign 'Buy American, Hire American' executive order

Gregory Korte , USA TODAY 9:25 p.m. ET April 17, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump will sign a double-barreled executive order Tuesday that will clamp down on guest worker visas and require agencies to buy more goods and services from U.S. companies and workers.

Trump will sign the so-called "Buy American, Hire American" executive order during a visit to Snap-On Tools in Kenosha, Wis., Tuesday, said two senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the order Monday. The officials spoke on condition they not be identified because the cabinet-level officials who could discuss the matter on the record were unavailable.

By combining aspects of immigration policy with federal procurement regulations, Trump is using executive action to advance his philosophy of economic nationalism without waiting for action from Congress. But like many of his previous executive orders, the order will largely call on cabinet secretaries to fill in the details with reports and recommendations about what the administration can legally do.

Specifically targeted: The H-1B visa program, which allows 85,000 foreign workers into the United States each year to take specific high-skilled jobs with U.S. companies. The program is popular with the information technology industry, which Trump has accused of "importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans."

The executive order will stop short of the one- to two-year moratorium on new skilled worker visas that Trump called for during the campaign. And it comes too late to have a direct effect on this year's visa season, which opened April 3.

Instead, the executive order will look for administrative changes, including an overhaul of the lottery system used to determine which companies can sponsor the visas, one official said. Other visa programs, like the H-2B seasonal worker visa that Trump himself uses to staff his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., will be largely unaffected.

The "Buy American" portion of the order will tighten the waivers and exemptions that agencies use to get around procurement laws that favor American-made goods, and require agency heads to sign off on those waivers. It will require agencies to consider whether foreign governments are using unfair trade practices when considering the lowest responsible bidder. And it includes language requiring transportation projects to use steel "melted and poured" in the United States.

Trump will sign the order in Wisconsin, a state he won last November with an appeal to blue-collar workers and a promise to revive manufacturing jobs.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...der/100582276/

Trump to seek changes in visa program to encourage hiring Americans

By Steve Holland | WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump on Tuesday will sign an executive order directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill high-skilled jobs.

Two senior Trump administration officials who briefed reporters at the White House said Trump will also use the "buy American and hire American" order to seek changes in government procurement practices to increase the purchase of American products in federal contracts.

Trump is to sign the order when he visits the world headquarters of Snap-On Inc, a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The order is an attempt by Trump to carry out his "America First" campaign pledges to reform U.S. immigration policies and encourage purchases of American products. As he nears the 100-day benchmark of his presidency, Trump has no major legislative achievements to tout but has used executive orders to seek regulatory changes to help the U.S. economy.

The order he will sign on Tuesday will call for "the strict enforcement of all laws governing entry into the United States of labor from abroad for the stated purpose of creating higher wages and higher employment rates for workers in the United States," one of the senior officials said.

It will call on the departments of Labor, Justice, Homeland Security and State to take action to crack down on what the official called "fraud and abuse" in the U.S. immigration system to protect American workers.

The order will call on those four federal departments to propose reforms to ensure H-1B visas are awarded to the most skilled or highest paid applicant.

H-1B visas are intended for foreign nationals in "specialty" occupations that generally require higher education, which according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) includes, but is not limited to, scientists, engineers or computer programmers. The government uses a lottery to award 65,000 visas every year and randomly distributes another 20,000 to graduate student workers.

The number of applications for H-1B visas fell to 199,000 this year from 236,000 in 2016, according U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Companies say they use visas to recruit top talent. More than 15 percent of Facebook Inc's U.S. employees in 2016 used a temporary work visa, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. Labor Department filings.

But a majority of the visas are awarded to outsourcing firms, sparking criticism by skeptics who say those firms use the visas to fill lower-level information technology jobs. Critics also say the lottery system benefits outsourcing firms that flood the system with mass applications.

The senior official said the end result of how the system currently works is that foreign workers are often brought in at less pay to replace American workers, "violating the principle of the program."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California and Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California were not immediately available to comment.

Facebook, Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc were also not immediately available after normal business hours.

The order also asks federal agencies to look at how to get rid of loopholes in the government procurement process.

Specifically, the review will take into account whether waivers in free-trade agreements are leading to unfair trade by allowing foreign companies to undercut American companies in the global government procurement market.

"If it turns out America is a net loser because of those free-trade agreement waivers, which apply to almost 60 countries, these waivers may be promptly renegotiated or revoked," the second official said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and David Ingram in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN17K02U

Trump to push 'Buy American, Hire American' policy at Wisconsin visit

By Jeremy Diamond, CNN
Updated 10:21 PM ET, Mon April 17, 2017

Story highlights

The order looks to bolster protections for certain American-made goods
Trump travels to Wisconsin Tuesday

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Tuesday will sign an executive order directing federal agencies to implement the "Buy American, Hire American" rhetoric of his campaign.

The order looks to bolster protections for certain American-made goods and calls for a review of the H-1B visa program for skilled workers, with the goal of reforming the program, senior administration officials said.

Trump will sign the executive order during a trip Tuesday to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he will tour the headquarters of Snap-on-Tools, a Wisconsin-based manufacturer, and deliver a speech about US manufacturing.

Senior administration officials who briefed reporters Monday touted the executive order as a "historic step" that would help protect American manufacturers and American workers whom the administration believes have been hurt by lax enforcement of "Buy American" laws and employers abusing the H1-B visa program.

The executive order, though, does not take direct action to fundamentally change either portion, instead initiating a series of reviews and assessments and calling on federal departments to begin proposing reforms to the programs. The order would send a clear signal to federal agencies responsible for enforcing the programs that the administration wants to see a more aggressive stance, officials said.

"Both 'buy American' and 'hire American' rules have been enormously diluted over time, resulting in many lost job opportunities for American workers," one senior administration official said, adding that groups on both sides of the aisle have called for reforms of those rules to no avail.

"This is what America wants," said a second official.

On the "hire American" front, the executive order directs federal agencies to more strictly enforce H1-B visa laws and propose reforms to the program to prevent fraud and abuse and ensure visas are awarded to the most-skilled applicants. The H1-B visa program is intended to bring skilled workers in certain fields to the US, but the administration contended that employers have abused the program to hire workers who will accept cheaper pay than Americans.

The "buy American" portion of the order directs agencies to conduct a "top-to-bottom performance review" of the use of waivers and calls for stricter enforcement laws pertaining to the purchase of US-made goods by the federal government and the use of US-made iron and steel in projects supported by federal funds.

"'Buy American' is the Trump administration's highest priority when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars," one senior administration official said.

The CEO of Snap-On, the manufacturer Trump will visit on Tuesday, said in a statement he believes "the President's visit emphasizes the need to nurture (US) manufacturing strength."

But the CEO, Nicholas Pinchuk, pointed not to measures to protect American-made goods or reforms to the H1-B visa program, but rather to more training for workers.

"We are today in a global competition for jobs. And, the best way to make America successful in this environment is to arm our people with the technical capabilities that enable them to win that global contest for prosperity," Pinchuk said in a statement on the company's website. "The upskilling of the American workforce is the seminal issue of our time. We must refocus on technical education, restore our respect for the dignity of work and celebrate technical jobs not as the consolation prize of our society, but as what they really are -- a national calling essential to our ongoing prosperity."

The trip to Wisconsin will be Trump's first since becoming President.

Trump clinched victory in the state that hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1984 in part by turning counties like Kenosha County -- which happens to be home to his chief of staff Reince Priebus -- his way.

Trump narrowly defeated his rival Hillary Clinton in the county -- by only 238 votes -- in a 47%-to-47% split. But that came after President Barack Obama carried the county in both 2008 and 2012 by 18 and 12 percentage points, respectively.

The visit to the politically crucial state that helped carry Trump to a shocking electoral victory in November comes as Trump approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency -- and Trump is eager to show signs of success and action.

Trump's move on Tuesday will not be in the form of any legislation, but rather another executive order -- a tool Trump has used repeatedly since taking office to show his political supporters that he is making good on key campaign promises without the messy fight of legislative action.

One senior administration official briefing reporters on Monday hinted at the political implications of the visit, touting Trump looking out for working-class interests and Tuesday's executive order as one aimed at "turning the Republican Party into a vehicle to broadly represent working-class citizens."

CNN's Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/politi...-buy-american/

This has gotten good coverage. Nice to see the CORRUPT MEDIA reporting on something that matters to the American People once in awhile. I noticed that there are 85,000 H1B visas. I was surprised by that number. There used to be only 65,000. Did Congress raise those recently? I guess so.

Morons.

Planned Trump Order Will Discourage Hiring of Low-Wage Foreign Workers

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
APRIL 18, 2017

Shipments of H-1B visa petitions arrived this month at a government processing center in Laguna Niguel, Calif. As a candidate, President Trump vowed to end the visa program. Credit Eros Hoagland for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at making it harder for technology companies to recruit low-wage workers from foreign countries and undercut Americans looking for jobs.

Mr. Trump will also direct all federal agencies to systematically examine the effectiveness of government rules and trade agreements that require a preference for purchasing from American companies.

The president will announce the order during a visit to the headquarters of Snap-on Tools in Kenosha, Wis., senior administration officials told reporters during a briefing Monday afternoon. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the president’s announcement.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump often assailed the government’s H-1B visa program, under which the government admits 85,000 immigrants each year, mostly to work in high-tech jobs. Mr. Trump pledged to end the program, which he said was allowing companies to fire Americans and replace them with lower-cost foreign employees.

The expected executive order falls far short of ending that program, but the administration officials argued on Monday that the changes Mr. Trump sought would radically change it.

The officials said 80 percent of the immigrants who enter the United States under the current visa program are paid less than the median wage for workers in their fields.

The president’s order seeks changes to the program that would require applicants and their potential employers to demonstrate that the visas are going only to “the most highly skilled workers” in their fields.

As a result, the officials said, the H-1B visa would no longer be a cheap way for companies to replace American workers. But technology executives, who have argued that the program is vital to their ability to recruit talent, are likely to be frustrated by the change.

Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a research group sponsored by several tech companies, predicted in January that a crackdown on H-1B visas would be counterproductive.

“The effect would end up being exactly the opposite of what Trump wants,” he said. “Companies would go offshore, like Microsoft did with Vancouver, Canada,” to seek talent.

The changes Mr. Trump is seeking will take some time to carry out, the administration officials said. The order will call for a 220-day review of waivers and exceptions made to decades-old “Buy American” rules.

Those waivers are at the heart of about 60 trade deals with foreign countries, the officials said. If the review finds that the waivers are detrimental to American workers, the trade deals could be renegotiated, they added.

In addition, all federal agencies will be directed to strictly enforce “Buy American” rules, giving the highest priority to American companies when making purchasing decisions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/u...y-workers.html

Need to end the H1B program entirely. Get rid of it Congress. We have plenty of high-skilled and technical workers in the United States who need to keep the jobs they have and others who need to apply to any new ones you have to offer.

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On the planned order by Trump, Ronil Hira, a professor in public policy at Howard University and a critic of the H-1B program, said, "It's better than nothing." But he added, "It's not as aggressive as it needs to be."

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I agree that it is better than nothing, but in reality it really doesn't offer a lot of specific details.

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The executive order will stop short of the one- to two-year moratorium on new skilled worker visas that Trump called for during the campaign. And it comes too late to have a direct effect on this year's visa season, which opened April 3.

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Another broken promise? Hmm, and I find it rather odd that the administration waited until after April 3rd to sign this E.O.

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Other visa programs, like the H-2B seasonal worker visa that Trump himself uses to staff his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., will be largely unaffected.

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Not surprised. Many of these H-2B jobs are where our teenage high school students and young college students used to seek employment.

It is all @ the penny pinching rich, trump should hire American workers! Our young are still out in the cold for early job experiences and as long as h1-b foreigners have jobs here, so are our college educated, student loan burdened adults. Situations are not being rectified as promised.

artist, I'm not defending Trump on this, but his situation at the resort in Palm Beach is during a 90 day period between November and February. November, December and January. There might be a lot of American teenagers who would like to work there for these 90 days. I don't know. But they have school and want to be home for the holidays, same with their parents. I read an article that Trump is hiring 64 H2B workers for Mar-a-Lago for 2017 winter season. They are from Haiti and Romania. They come, they work the season, and then they leave and go home. The jobs are cooks, cleaners, gardeners and dishwashers. They make $12.74 an hour, and no American is fired and replaced with a foreign worker. This has apparently been the winter season system that all the south florida hotels and resorts use for many years.

It should change somehow. But a new and better system needs to be established by the industry. Employment firms need to try to develop an American worker base in the US that's filled with people willing to spend their holidays away from home. That's a tough time of the year in the US to hire American seasonal workers anywhere because that's when all the retail stores are also trying to hire seasonal workers in areas where the Americans live who can work all or most of the season and still be home for the holidays.

Maybe all this publicity about the issue will cause some entrepreneurs to start an American-based contracting company to fill these jobs with Americans. Hope so!!

There may be reasons that make it easier, more profitable, etc., to hire foreign workers.

But I still have to ask, who was doing the work before?

How did those resorts manage to maintain a staff? They apparently were.

I'm sure it's easier to contact an employment company that handles foreigners, tell them how many you want, and they show up.

It's messy having to interview, fill out the paperwork, maintain records, deduct and match some taxes, fire, etc. when you are dealing with Americans.

Just a quick check seems to say foreign workers must pay income taxes - depending on some tax treaties,but realistically how many do? If they do, do they get to file returns and get more back due to our 'unearned income tax credit'?

But in exchange for that messiness, we get citizens who maybe help keep their family off welfare, young people may be able to save to pay for college. The monies they earn will be spent in this country - not sent or taken back to a foreign country.

I realize it is an 'everyone does it' situation, and I realize how convenient it must be, but it is a no no for me.

That's the same arguments employers use for hiring illegals.

Yes, it's legal to hire HB workers - only because the powerful and wealthy have had the clout to get such laws passed. I don't see any difference between hiring HB workers and hiring illegals.

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who was doing the work before?

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OUR YOUTHS! That is often their first experience in the real world, that landscaping job, restaurant work etc. These experiences do not exist for them anymore due to cheap tricks like trump uses and our gov't sets up. trump should practice what he preaches.O

Our older youths with student loans $$$$ & IT degrees, will not be able to leave their parents basement as long as zuckerberg and his like hire h1-b foreign workers and trump continues to allow it.

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Originally Posted by artist

OUR YOUTHS! That is often their first experience in the real world, that landscaping job, restaurant work etc. These experiences do not exist for them anymore due to cheap tricks like trump uses and our gov't sets up. trump should practice what he preaches.O

Our older youths with student loans $$$$ & IT degrees, will not be able to leave their parents basement as long as zuckerberg and his like hire h1-b foreign workers and trump continues to allow it.

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Absolutely!!!

You would think this country was just in a mess before we began bringing illegals and other foreign workers.

As I understand it, there is a 65,000 cap on H1B visas, plus an "exemption to the cap" for up to 20,000 foreign student graduates of US colleges and universities. That's why they use the number of 85,000 instead of 65,000. Congress is so sneaky.

I would also like to hear more speak-out about the 1.1 million green cards issued every year. The only person speaking out about those is Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas who wants to cut it in half I think to less than 500,000.

500,000. That's 10 new cities a year of towns the size I live in and we haven't had enough jobs to go around for the many years I've been here. But I guess 500,000 is better than 1.1 million.

Time to start the yelling about these green cards. Those are true madness to me at these numbers, and they're mostly poor people moving here and moving in with other poor people and immediately sign up for welfare with the rest of the family.

You are not making me feel better, I had not considered those.

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Originally Posted by nntrixie

You are not making me feel better, I had not considered those.

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LOL!! I'm sorry. But we have to focus on the big numbers. The whole immigration, legal and illegal, is numbers. We seem to get caught up in these smaller issues like H1B's, which are bad, because they're abusing the program because we haven't had a Labor Secretary smart enough or honest enough to actually enforce the rules. But numbers-wise, they are small potato compared to the green cards and even other visa programs like that H2B program. That's the program that's stealing jobs from our youths, not the H1B program. The H2B program allows 70,000 of those into the country a year. Then there's the H2A visa program for up to 10 months of temporary/seasonal work, mainly used by agriculture, but some other industries as well, and that's another 140,000.

So Green Cards, 1.1 million, H1B plus H2B and H2A combined is another 295,000 for a total of just these programs of 1.4 million every single year, then there's other types of visas and guest worker permits and on and on and on. So knock the hell out of that green card 1.1 million, then cut the H1B way down, get rid of the H2B completely, and limit H2A, to agriculture and raw food, mushroom growing and seaside seafood cleaning and stuff like that where they need thousands for a couple of months or whatever.

Oh it's a mess, nntrixie. The numbers are outrageous which is why we'd do better for our cause to hit them all, yes, but focus on the biggest ones as our priority which is GREEN CARDS.

Just imagine what kind of country we would have if we stopped this insanity.

People would have jobs, would be paying taxes - rather than taking.

Maybe we could get back to actually having laws and enforcing them.

Oh, there are a lot of things that I can think of that would be more comfortable, safer, and better.

Oh, it would be the dream of our country we've always held. Everyone free, with good jobs and benefits, very little poverty and unemployment, and certainly only temporary, not permanent, not generational, plenty of good businesses and manufacturers operating properly, making great high-quality, well-made products we're all happy and proud to purchase and own. There will always be sad cases and situations where we need programs to address them, but not for 1/3 of our population. It's just outrageous what we're doing and have allowed to happen in our country to our own people.

Trump will fix it. I know he will. It won't be fixed in a couple of months, the problem is too enormous for that at this point, but it will be fixed soon. He will end illegal immigration into the United States once and for all, because he's the only person to win the Presidency with the the will and skills and intentions and tenacity to do so. It will be done quickly and quietly.