Will Trump Protect America's IT Workers From H-1B Visa Abuses? (cio.com.au)

Monday president-elect Donald Trump sent "the strongest signal yet that the H-1B visa program is going get real scrutiny once he takes office," according to CIO. Slashdot reader OverTheGeicoE summarizes their report: President-elect Donald Trump released a video message outlining his policy plans for his first 100 days in office. At 1 minute, 56 seconds into the message, he states that he will direct the Department of Labor to investigate "all abuses of the visa programs that undercut the American worker." During his presidential campaign, Trump was critical of the H-1B visa program that has been widely criticized for displacing U.S. high-technology workers. "Companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans," said Trump at an Ohio rally. At other rallies, Trump invited former IT workers from Disney who had been forced to train their H-1B replacements to speak.
"What he didn't say was that he was going to close the door to skilled immigrants," one tech entrepreneur told CNN Money -- although Trump's selection for attorney general has called the shortage of qualified American tech workers "a hoax".

Comments

Yes. No. Maybe.

[OzPeter]

As with all things Trump, you'll never know until he does it. The best "advice" I saw was to ignore the mouth in front of the man.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to what other politician? Take everything they say with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[EvilSS]

As with all things Trump, you'll never know until he does it. The best "advice" I saw was to ignore the mouth in front of the man.

Even if he does roll a "DO" on his presidential dice-of-deciding, it doesn't mean the rest of the government will allow him to. There are plenty of congressmen and women on both sides of the aisle taking money from companies that profit from H1B abuse to block any attempts to reign them in.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[fustakrakich]

Just because YOUR candidate is a fraud doesn't mean they all are.

If they are democrat/republican, they are. They answer to the party and the money, not the voters. But don't take it personal. it's strictly business.

Besides, once again the sore loser democrats still won't let go. Let's not sweat about Trump until January 20...

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[murdocj]

When Trump's statements are fact-checked, he is far, far, far, ... far less truthful than anyone else in politics. He not only lies, he repeats some real whoppers. Basically he relies on Hitler's theory of the 'Big Lie', and apparently it still works.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[murdocj]

The bribery thing will cut both ways... and will cut trump far harder than anyone else, as he is unwilling to unlink himself from his business interests. Almost anything he does is going to have an angle that benefits him personally.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[dywolf]

as if that determines whether or not anything they say is true.
you are free to prove them wrong.

the fact you sockpuppetted your self up means nothing.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[LynnwoodRooster]

The difference is - it's out in the open, it's public. With the Clintons - deleted e-mails, constantly revised tax filiings, backroom deals, private meetings on Government jets - you don't know WHAT is being bribed by whom. I'll take out-in-the-open any day.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[murdocj]

Out in the open? trump? the guy who wouldn't even open up his taxes the way every other candidate for the last 50 years has? Hillary was FAR more open than he is.

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[dywolf]

trump is actively engaging in corruption as we speak because somehow, someone forgot to make the conflict of interest law apply to POTUS.
there's a repbulican majority in congress, and all they need to do to make him sign something is suck his dick a little bit.
all he cares about is his himself.
and agian with the union bullshit

Re:Yes. No. Maybe.

[Ksevio]

It's pretty clear that the primary reason for impeachment was for paying people to break into the Watergate, not because he got rid of the tape of it. I suppose you could stretch some of the stuff to be applied to Hillary - it would be a real stretch and much easier to apply them to Bush.

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

We're low on clickbait stories that will drive page views and ad revenue...wait...holy shit Trump AND H1B's? JACKPOT! - EditorDavid

Go to the transition website

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to the transition website. Use the feature to submit an idea and tell them about H1B abuse. I did. Probably does nothing. Couldn't hurt. Tell them if your company is doing it. Name names and give numbers. I did. Probably does nothing. Couldn't hurt.

Re:Go to the transition website

[plopez]

All of them. H1B is de facto indentured servitude.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at who he is stocking his cabinet with... If you think he is going to do anything to protect workers, you drank too much of the koolaid.

Re:No

[smooth wombat]

Not to mention this is the same guy who claims he wants to bring jobs back to America but uses illegal foreign workers on his projects, buys Chinese steel rather than American steel and has his name brand products made in China and Mexico.

He's already said he wants to get rid of safety and consumer-friendly regulations so why would anyone think he'd do anything to a program which is now used as an excuse to not hire American workers?

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention this is the same guy who claims he wants to bring jobs back to America but uses illegal foreign workers on his projects, buys Chinese steel rather than American steel and has his name brand products made in China and Mexico.

Maybe, but you know what? Trump actually spoke directly to the beaten down American worker. He acknowledged his pain and suffering and promised to help him recover. Even if the promise is not kept, he at least claimed that he would fight for the American worker and love him or hate him Trump has a reputation for getting shit done. Compare that to Hillary Clinton, who basically ignored the American worker or at least the white working poor (ex middle class) worker in the rust belt and coal states. Hillary Clinton to coal miners, "drop dead". Now I ask you, if you were a blue collar high school educated white man struggling to feed a family and hold onto the home by your fingernails, who would you have voted for? Remember, you got nothing but layoffs, wage stagnation and being told how "privileged" you were under Obama. Were you going to vote for four more years of that? Yeah right. The blue collar high school educated man may be ignorant, but he's not stupid.

Re:No

[drinkypoo]

Maybe, but you know what? Trump actually spoke directly to the beaten down American worker.

He spoke more clearly and convincingly to those who actually have money. We know this because the median yearly income of Trump voters was $10,000 higher than that of Clinton voters. It's not Trump's message to the working man that got him elected. It's his appeal to the rich. If he gets his way, wave goodbye to the estate tax, and say hello to tax cuts for the already-rich at the expense of the working class.

Now I ask you, if you were a blue collar high school educated white man struggling to feed a family and hold onto the home by your fingernails, who would you have voted for?

I would have voted for Sanders in the primary, and when he didn't become the candidate, I would have stayed home. That's what the statistics show happened more often than not, anyway.

The blue collar high school educated man may be ignorant, but he's not stupid.

Right. That's why the idea that he voted for Trump is a myth.

Re:No

[smooth wombat]

a blue collar high school educated white man

And there it is. It's the uneducated angry white guy who voted the con-artist into office because they were too stupid to think for themselves, not to mention the white supremacists.

These people swallowed every lie fed to them, hook, line and sinker, because, as is repeatedly mentioned on here, they didn't adapt to the changing work environment. Instead of realizing coal would never be king again and looking to other job opportunities such as wind or solar power, like the farrier and blacksmith of yore they clung desperately to the past. They fought tooth and nail every renewable energy project which might have provided them with good paying, sustainable jobs because they were too stupid to look beyond their back door.

Tell me, in four years when absolutely nothing has changed, who are these people going to blame? I can guarantee their stupidity will be on full display when they place blame everywhere else (liberals, socialists, blacks, hispanics, etc) rather than on Trump who made grand promises which he had no way and no intention of every keeping.

Trump is a showman like Lyle Lanley who promised Springfield the world if they built a monorail, except in the end, Trump will still pocket millions because of his conflicts of interest while the coal miners will be no further along and still just a bunch of angry white men.

No

[Bender Unit 22]

It seems that he is turning into a politician really fast. By February, they will have him reeled in.

Re:offshoring

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember folks, in many cases companies will simply offshore the work if they don't perceive American labor as the most cost-effective option.

Labor isn't the only cost. Why do you think that offshore companies want to relocate workers here to the United States on visas rather than basing them in say India or wherever they're from? Here in the US a worker benefits from strong military and police protection, rule of law, good infrastructure, reliable power supply, large concentrations of the best educated and most experienced tech workers in the world and the list goes on. Compare that with a country like India say, where the power is only on about half the time, you need a fortress campus with armed guards, you need to build your own infrastructure (water purification, power, sewage, etc) because the local shit for brains government provides nothing. American workers paying American taxes built America. It's our right to benefit from that first. If a company wants to relocate to an offshore shit hole and compete from there, more power to them, but we must end the H1-B visa fraud at the expense of our American workers. It's our country. We voted for Trump so that he would throw the bums out. Let them compete from their developing nations, but it's time to send the liars, cheaters and scammers a message that the party is over. From now on we're going to be looking out for America first and that includes the American worker.

I think it's much more likely

[rsilvergun]

that the grifter who's been cheating people for 70s years and who doesn't pay his contractors is gonna keep on doing what he's been doing.

But it's a moot point anyway. His cabinet picks alone are all other completely corrupt, completely incompetent or both. Whatever he wants to do doesn't matter. The important decisions will be made for him to the benefit of the 1% and the detriment of the rest of us.

Re:why does it make any difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, first of all including graduates and other exemptions it's more. Second of all it's about 100k+ new ones per year so about 600k working h1b's at any given moment. If your numbers are right its about 10% of tech workforce. Also you have to remember that tech jobs in a wide classification and only a part of those jobs are h1b targets unproportionally dev jobs.

Re:And it doesn't matter.

[cayenne8]

You mean to a re-design to avoid someone winning the popular vote by millions of votes but still losing the election? Avoiding that in the future sounds like a good thing

No it would not.

If it were only the popular vote, then approx 3 states or so would call the shots for ALL the states in the union, and that does not represent the vastly different interests of each state due to its peoples' outlooks, and its needs based on its geography.

We'd basically have CA and NY for the most part deciding the presidents for the US going forward.

The way things were set up, you are a citizen of your STATE first...and then a citizen of the United States. This is for a very good reason. One size in a nation this large does not fit. That's why most power is supposed to reside with each state and the federal govt is constitutionally supposed to be weak in regard to that balance of power.

But we are a nation of states....and the balance needs to be kept on that level, not on pure population levels in very isolated regions.

Re:offshoring

[shutdown -p now]

American workers paying American taxes built America.

Guess where H1B workers pay their taxes in?..

In fact, they pay more than you, because they pay all the welfare taxes too, but aren't eligible for any of it.