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US Increases Number of H-2B Visas By 15,000 (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: President Donald Trump has said he's going to set more limits on the H-1B visa program, which allows tens of thousands of technology workers into the U.S. each year. But yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security moved to expand another type of visa, the H-2B, which allows lower-skilled workers in on a seasonal basis. The Department of Homeland Security said yesterday it is going to allow an additional 15,000 workers to come in under the H-2B visa category, which is typically used by U.S. businesses in industries like tourism, construction, and seafood processing. The program normally allows for 66,000 visas, split between the two halves of the year. That means the DHS increase, announced yesterday, represents an increase of more than 40 percent for the second half of 2017. Businesses can begin applying for the additional visas right away, as long as they attest under penalty of perjury that their business will "suffer irreparable harm" if it can't employ additional H-2B workers in 2017. The expansion is a temporary one, and it only applies to the current year.
"getting help in Palm Beach during the season is almost impossible."
That's not the whole story. Here are the con artist's own words about using H-2B quotas at Mar-a-Lago:
"It's almost impossible to get help," the Republican presidential candidate told CNN last month. "And part of the reason you can't get American people is they want full time jobs."
Oh the horror. Americans wanting full-time jobs. But then, being the con artist, you don't suppose he's lying, do you? The next two paragraphs:
That is news to Tom Veenstra. He is senior director of support services at the Palm Beach County CareerSource office. It's a free service that links qualified job candidates with employers. And during the past two years, the agency has placed more than 50,000 people in jobs in Palm Beach County. Veenstra says he has no doubt he could fill Mar-a-Lago with U.S. workers.
"We have hundreds of qualified candidates for jobs like these," Veenstra told CNN. "That's what we do here. We help place local residents into jobs like those."
If you're talking about the non-Trump voters, you're quite wrong. Personally, I'm laughing about this, because this is going to hurt the Trump voters who wanted protectionism against the immigrants who'd take these unskilled jobs. It's ironic: they stupidly thought Trump would work for their interests and that he was different (despite all evidence to the contrary), and now he's working directly against their interests. I'm curious how the Trump-lovers are going to spin this.
"Competing for [low-end service workers] via wages/benefits would drive our costs through the roof, which would in turn make our services so expensive that nobody could afford them."
Especially at Mar-a-Lago, which is frequently visited by poor and middle class vacationers.