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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.
Good.
A xenophobic leopard ain't gonna change his xenophobic spots.
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. Furthermore, the president himself doesn't really have any real positions with the exception that he's great and wants praise. The only thing that matters to this eternally waffling president is his own ego.
The real shame here is that a certain political party refused to even speak out against this farce of a president (much less impeach) and have now become the party of extremism as a result.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If he cracks down on H1B abuse, that's a good thing in both the short and the long run, regardless of what the vested interests that are big media and big tech have to say on the subject. And given past reporting on the economics of H1B, it is fair to say that much of the program is abuse. Good on Trump.
As to the rest of it...that's right: Congress needs to change the law in order for the law to be changed. I understand why this may come as unexpected news given the previous administration's looser interpretation of the separation of powers and big media's unabashed cheerleading of that loose interpretation but it is indeed the case that if we want merit-based immigration, then we need to change the law from what we have now to what we would like to have.
Enforcing the letter of the existing laws to highlight their inadequacy is about the only thing the President can do to force the issue. That's what happened with terminating DACA. The lefties couldn't stomach actually having to vote on amnesty for an ever-changing and open-ended number of illegal immigrants so they sued in a friendly court where an Obama-appointed judge made the curious ruling that the Trump administration could not terminate DACA on the grounds of its illegality because only a court could find something illegal. We'll see what sort of contortions the left will make in their inevitable court challenge. Perhaps they will find a judge who is willing to rule that only even-numbered presidents may issue executive orders while odd-numbered presidents are obliged to keep on enforcing them, on the grounds that no one wants odd governance and an even-handed approach is more mathematically beautiful.
Currently, H1B visas are being abused by the employers. They have, effectively, a slave. Complain, get fired, lose your visa. It's a simple fix. Tie the H1B visa to the worker, not to the company. Make it easy for the visa holder to change jobs. It shouldn't be any more difficult than updating an online form with new employment information. This will eliminate the worst of the abusers. One other change I would make. H1B visa holders should be barred from working for a contracting company.
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You're saying he didn't sit down with Pelosi and Schumer to try to work out a deal?
Is that the deal he worked out and then reneged on the next morning? Because if that's how you are framing your argument, you need to find a new one.
What is the Liberal position on immigration, and how will that position benefit America?
Birth rates are declining in the West as a whole. (Look at Europe, Russia and the classic case of Japan.) Even some of the states in India have stabilized. For economy to keep growing you need more consumers. Immigration helps that. (Unless you want folks of your own skin color.) Any counter argument about jobs being lost - at least today you have the least unemployment in decades.
May be you can make a case about "when automation comes they immigrants will be a financial burden". I guess a huge subset of the population will require some sort of UBI.
Canada has a sensible (you can call it progressive as well) immigration policy. They take in 1% of their population - about 350K migrants - an year. (I was a Canadian immigrant once, now an American immigrant.) For an American immigrant, your primary identity is of an American, and that's the whole point of United States of America.
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> The State Department has ended an Obama-era program to grant visas to foreign entrepreneurs who want to start companies in the United States.
The companies those entrepreneurs start are staffing companies. Those staffing companies specialize in bringing over visa workers to take US jobs.
Staffing companies do not actually create jobs, they are just middle-men.
> The whole idea if merit based immigration is based on the false racist assumption that somehow those classified as belonging to a White race are superior
No it is not. Please stop lying.
The most significant part of this is an intent to prevent spouses from working.
The most common reason for failure (i.e. return to origin country) of expatriation or immigration of skilled workers is the partner being unhappy. For people from most developed countries, their husband or wife also expects a career - the time of househusbands or even housewives living on a one income family and being happy about that is over. In academia, this is known as the two-body problem: if you hire an academic from another country, there are two bodies to please, not just one.
So if Trump makes it impossible to get a work permit for a spouse when a highly skilled migrant moves to the USA, all those from countries where men and women have approximate equality will just not come. Try telling your partner you're moving to different country for a great professional opportunity but they can't work when they're there, so they have to give up their career and can't start another job or another occupation. It won't go well for most of you, and that's particularly true if you're higher skilled and globally mobile because such people tend to have partners or spouses who are also higher skilled and globally mobile.
Of course, this won't discourage people who are in large company H1B visa schemes used to supply more generic mid-skilled workers for contracts in the USA, especially as they are usually younger and less likely to have spouses and children.
But the university professors, top engineering talent, top management talent - that will all go "My wife can't work? My husband has to lose his career? No thanks - I'll take that job in another country instead." Trump won't understand or even notice, but universities, tech corporations, engineering corporations, and even orchestras will notice.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
So you're saying that he didn't make his position clear about immigration before the election? Or after the election?
Correct because he doesn't have a position. What he has is the position of playing to whatever his base wants.
You're saying he didn't sit down with Pelosi and Schumer to try to work out a deal?
No, he didn't. What he did was sit down with Schumer and work to not make a deal to so that the government would shut down. He then proceeded to message that Democrat didn't care and the government shutdown was entirely their doing. He even bragged that he was going to do that back in September.
You're saying he didn't send a 70-point immigration wish-list to congress right before the Omnibus bill?
He sent a wish list but he really doesn't care one way or the other, as long as it's what his extreme-right base wants. If they were insisting on amnesty for all illegal immigrants then he would have sent a wish list about that.
You're making shit up. The truth is... you're making shit up.
I'd be laughing if this wasn't such a serious situation. Our president is a malignant narcissist and doctors have been trying to warn you.
This is a standard liberal practice - just make shit up about the other side and then say how bad that shit is.
Now that is rich. If you look at the situation objectively then you would see that the White House is in chaos and our president is guilty of many very serious felonies. There isn't a special council appointed when everything is fine.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
there's been a lot of job losses to immigration. Yes, immigrants contribute heavily to the economy, but unless you own your own business employing those immigrants you're not benefiting from that. Now with our supply side economic system. Maybe if we had single payer healthcare, a fully funded social security and a proper safety net you'd there's be a point. But for the vast majority of native born workers the immigrants don't help, they hurt.
Ignoring that fact is what got Trump into the Whitehouse. It's why the Dems keep losing seats (1000 in the last 8 years) in all major government races. Right now both parties are heavily in favor of whatever helps the mega corps most. That means supply side economics, low taxes, war profiteering and cuts to social services.
All of these things mean a winner take all economy where the only determining factor in your quality of life is your job. And therefore anything that gets in the way of a good job is pretty much the worst thing ever. It's a twisted system to be sure, but we're not accomplishing anything by failing to acknowledge the reality of it and writing people off as xenophobes.
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points out that they've contributed billions but may never reap the benefits. Just like everybody in this country...
Seriously, if you want people to stop fighting immigration you need to make it so that some of the wealth they generate makes it into their hands too. Right no immigrants contribute a lot to the economy but all that wealth winds up concentrated at the top.
What I"m saying is this: Kicking the immigrants out will hurt a sector of the economy that your average Trump voter is completely isolated from (Wallstreet mostly). Meanwhile their entire quality of life is dependent on getting jobs. Fewer immigrants means more demand for their labor. That's just supply and demand. They're making a perfectly rational decision given a completely irrational world.
tl;dr. Fix our screwed up supply side economic system or expect more twisted distortions like this.
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The truth is... you're making shit up.
This is a standard liberal practice - just make shit up about the other side
I like how you twisted the discussion to be us vs them. The other side. We're us and you're them and our politics is pure team sport. Party first country second, Putin is proud.
The Vox isn't a credible source. Come back when you have a reliable source.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.