by Neil Munro17 Jul 2017
Homeland defense secretary John Kelly will print 15,000 additional H-2B visas for foreign blue-collar workers in 2017, according to a statement from the agency.
The 11.00 a.m. announcement said:
U.S. businesses in danger of suffering irreparable harm due to a lack of available temporary nonagricultural workers will be able to hire up to 15,000 additional temporary nonagricultural workers under the H-2B program …
“Congress gave me the opportunity to provide temporary relief to American
businesses in danger of suffering irreparable harm due to a lack of available temporary workers,” said DHS Secretary John Kelly. “As a demonstration of the Administration’s commitment to supporting American businesses, DHS is providing this one-time increase to the congressionally set annual cap.”
The decision was forced by GOP leaders in Congress, and is “a betrayal of [President Donald] Trump’s campaign promise to deliver blue-collar jobs to Americans,” said one opponent of the wage-cutting H-2B visa program.
“Kelly’s decision to increase H-2B foreign workers threatens to reverse the trend of reports emerging around the country of employers working harder and raising pay to successfully recruit more unemployed Americans for lower-skilled jobs,” said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which favors pro-American immigration reforms. He added:
Congress gave Kelly the authority to put around 70,000 more of those jobs out of the reach of Americans; at least Kelly limited the damage to keeping just 15,000 more Americans out of the labor market. Nonetheless, this is yet another example of the Administration and Congress failing to keep the Trump campaign promise of putting American workers first.”
The concession by Kelly marks
a win for the GOP legislators and allied business groups who oppose President Donald Trump’s popular “Buy American, Hire American” policy.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/07/17/speaker-ryan-squeezes-h-2b-workers-dhs-chief-john-kelly/
