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From Breitbart: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will funnel an additional 65,000 H-2B foreign visa workers into blue-collar jobs, even as Americans continue losing out in the labor market to an increasing flow of migrant workers.
DHS and the Labor Department made the announcement soon after the presidential election, noting that the agency will allow businesses to import 65,000 additional H-2B foreign visa workers to take jobs in construction, meatpacking, landscaping, and other industries.
Already, businesses are allowed to import 66,000 H-2B foreign visa workers to take blue-collar, nonagricultural American jobs annually though that cap is routinely expanded by presidential administrations.
In the DHS announcement, released last Friday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that importing more foreign workers for American jobs will help America’s economy.
“The Department of Homeland Security is committed to further growing our nation’s strong economy,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “By maximizing the use of the H-2B visa program, the Department of Homeland Security is helping to ensure the labor needs of American businesses are met, keeping prices down for consumers while strengthening worker protections and deterring irregular migration to the United States.”
“In our ongoing efforts to further grow our nation’s economy, deter irregular migration, and strengthen protections for American workers, @DHSgov & @USDOL will once again use the authority provided by Congress to ensure the labor needs of American businesses are met,” Mayorkas boldly declared in an X post, sharing a link to the press release.
The announcement reads:
The H-2B supplemental rule would include an allocation of 20,000 visas to workers from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, or Costa Rica and a separate allocation of 44,716 supplemental visas that would be available to returning workers who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years. The regulation would allocate the supplemental visas for returning workers between the first half and second half of the fiscal year to account for the need for additional seasonal and other temporary workers over the course of the year, with a portion of the second half allocation reserved to meet the demand for workers during the peak summer season.
The H-2B visa program permits eligible employers to hire noncitizens to perform temporary nonagricultural labor or services in the United States. The employment must be of a temporary nature, such as a one-time occurrence, seasonal need, peakload need, or intermittent need. Employers seeking H-2B workers must take a series of steps to test the U.S. labor market. They must obtain certification from DOL that there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to perform the temporary work for which they seek a prospective foreign worker, and that employing H-2B workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers. The maximum period of stay in H-2B classification is three years. A person who has held H-2B nonimmigrant status for a total of three years must depart and remain outside of the United States for an uninterrupted period of three months before seeking readmission as an H-2B nonimmigrant.
DHS and DOL are committed to protecting H-2B workers from exploitation and abuse, and to ensuring, consistent with the law, that employers do not refuse to hire or appropriately recruit U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to perform the temporary work.
In our ongoing efforts to further grow our nation’s economy, deter irregular migration, and strengthen protections for American workers, @DHSgov & @USDOL will once again use the authority provided by Congress to ensure the labor needs of American businesses are met: https://t.co/Sxg8QcckNg
— Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (@SecMayorkas) November 15, 2024
Podcast host and DMLNewsApp founder Dennis Michael Lynch reacted, writing, “Biden and Harris’s DHS is opening the floodgates with 65,000 more H-2B foreign visa workers, taking over blue-collar jobs while millions of Americans are already struggling to find work. How many more Americans have to suffer before this madness stops?”
Biden and Harris’s DHS is opening the floodgates with 65,000 more H-2B foreign visa workers, taking over blue-collar jobs while millions of Americans are already struggling to find work.
How many more Americans have to suffer before this madness stops?
— Dennis Michael Lynch (@TrustDML) November 21, 2024
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