I looked into this, and the problem seems to be just what you recommend, high school and college kids - they will not work like the poor: Plus certain unions. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3655072/posts
Eddie Devine voted for President Donald Trump because he thought he would be good for American business. Now, he says, the Trump administration’s restrictions on seasonal foreign labor may put him out of business.
Devine says it has been years since he could find enough dependable, drug-free American workers for his $12-an-hour jobs mowing and tending landscapes for cemeteries, shopping centers and apartment complexes across Central Kentucky...
Importing these workers for a few months cost him an additional $18,000 in fees and expenses beyond their wages, which must be the same as he pays American workers. But that’s the only way he could serve his customers. ..These workers aren’t immigrants, and there is no path to U.S. citizenship. When their seasonal work is done, they return home...Trump’s properties in Florida and New York have used 144 H-2B workers since 2016.
>Crab crisis: Maryland seafood industry loses 40 percent of work force in visa lottery [The same number are available, but] Trump administration for the first time awarded them this year in a lottery, instead of on a first-come, first-served basis..
>Harris, a Republican who represents the Eastern Shore, said he is working with the administration to find a way to raise the visa cap further, or to allow crab pickers to work under an agricultural visa program that isn’t limited. He said efforts to revise the H-2B guest worker program have been stalled by opposition from labor groups [read UNION], which have argued that companies don’t try hard enough to hire Americans or pay a living wage before turning to the program. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-crab-visa-shortage-20180502-story.html
Wait!!! $18,000 for about 3 months of summer work, plus $12 per hour. That is about 13 weeks, at 40 hours per week, that means costing them $46 per hour. Makes no sense. If they are saying the foreign workers are costing them $34 per hour as opposed to the $12 they are trying to pay Americans, why don’t they offer the $34 to Americans?!