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Trump Says He Wants Skilled Migrants But Creates New Hurdles (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Associated Press report: It may be a while before President Donald Trump gets another chance at creating a new, "merit-based" immigration system, a keystone of his four-part plan that Congress rejected last month. In the meantime, his administration is busy making it harder, not easier, for skilled migrants to come work in the United States. The State Department has ended an Obama-era program to grant visas to foreign entrepreneurs who want to start companies in the United States. It is more aggressively scrutinizing visas to skilled workers from other countries. And it is contemplating ending a provision that allows spouses of those skilled workers to be employed in the U.S.
The administration and its backers contend it's trying to fix flaws in the existing, employer-centric skilled immigration system while advocating for a complete overhaul of America's immigration system. "The stuff that they're actually doing is not so much restricting skilled immigration as enforcing the law," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports reducing immigration. "They're rolling back some of the extralegal measures that other administrations have taken." A primary avenue for skilled immigrants to enter the United States is the H1B visa for specialty workers, which is heavily used by the technology industry. About 85,000 visas are issued annually in a lottery system. Some critics argue they are a way for companies to avoid hiring U.S. citizens; Trump himself has said H1B recipients shouldn't even be considered skilled. Further reading: On Easter Sunday, Trump threatens to end DACA and 'stop' NAFTA.
The administration and its backers contend it's trying to fix flaws in the existing, employer-centric skilled immigration system while advocating for a complete overhaul of America's immigration system. "The stuff that they're actually doing is not so much restricting skilled immigration as enforcing the law," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports reducing immigration. "They're rolling back some of the extralegal measures that other administrations have taken." A primary avenue for skilled immigrants to enter the United States is the H1B visa for specialty workers, which is heavily used by the technology industry. About 85,000 visas are issued annually in a lottery system. Some critics argue they are a way for companies to avoid hiring U.S. citizens; Trump himself has said H1B recipients shouldn't even be considered skilled. Further reading: On Easter Sunday, Trump threatens to end DACA and 'stop' NAFTA.
Furthermore, the president himself doesn't really have any real positions with the exception that he's great and wants praise.
So you're saying that he didn't make his position clear about immigration before the election? Or after the election? You're saying he didn't sit down with Pelosi and Schumer to try to work out a deal? You're saying he didn't send a 70-point immigration wish-list to congress right before the Omnibus bill?
That's pretty hilarious.
While he may say he wants skilled workers, the truth is that he's working toward isolationism because that is what his extremist political base wants.
You're making shit up. The truth is... you're making shit up.
This is a standard liberal practice - just make shit up about the other side and then say how bad that shit is.
If you're so against what Trump is doing, tell us what we *should* be doing!
What is the Liberal position on immigration, and how will that position benefit America?
We should have already figured out well by now that the rhetoric around "merit-based immigration" was total bullshit when coming from Trump and his camp, it's a relic from the parts of the America right that aren't so virulently xenophobic and who used to have sway.
Really, this is what the "shithole" comments should have made perfectly clear. The problem with that wasn't that he used naughty language, it's that he didn't want people immigrating from "shitholes", but instead more coming from say, Norway. Doesn't matter if the "shitholes" have skilled people who want out and we could pick up in a brain drain, they are from of one of "those places" with too many of "those people".
He doesn't want to just clamp down on illegal immigration, he wants to clamp down on legal immigration too, and deport as much as he can get away with as a bonus. It doesn't do the rest of us much good to play doublespeak games with white supremacists like Stephen Miller.