From Ted Cruz’s immigration plan:
Suspend the issuance of all H-1B visas for 180 days to complete a comprehensive investigation and audit of pervasive allegations of abuse of the program: Initiate an immediate 180-day investigation and audit of the H-1B visa program and enact fundamental reforms of this program to ensure that it protects American workers. In recent months, more and more reports have become public of companies replacing American workers with cheaper foreign workers, contrary to the stated intent of the H-1B visa program. This will stop, and the H1-B program will be suspended until we can be certain that the program is no longer being abused.
Enforce existing federal protections for American workers: Conduct systematic audits of the companies that have taken advantage of the H-1B visa program during the last 15 years. All companies that have violated the terms of the H-1B visa program will be barred from using it for a period of years. The Attorney General will have authority to prosecute any individual found to have committed H-1B visa fraud, and offending companies will be suspended from receiving government grants and contracts.
Amend the H-1B visa program to fulfill its original purpose: Work with Congress to pass reform legislation for the H-1B visa program that will:
Create an advanced degree requirement: Only individuals with advanced degrees in their respective fields may be brought to the United States with an H-1B visa. And preference will be given to those with advanced degrees from American universities.
Create a “layoff cool-off†period for all H-1B visa applications: Companies must wait one or two years between laying off a worker and bringing in any H-1B foreign workers to ensure that the program is not used to displace American workers.
Establish accreditation or recognition requirements for overseas schools: The recent lack of federal oversight of the H-1B visa program has fueled a cottage industry of diploma mills. Foreign academic institutions must meet minimum accreditation standards at least as stringent as those imposed on American universities in order to qualify for the advanced-degree requirement.
Require sworn affidavits describing domestic hiring efforts: Companies will provide sworn statements and documentation that detail their efforts to hire Americans before requesting foreign workers through the H-1B visa program. Individuals who make false statements in these affidavits will be subject to perjury charges.
Suspend companies from H-1B visa eligibility for failure to help foreign workers obtain green cards: Many companies misuse the H-1B visa program to train foreign workers that they intend to send back overseas to compete with America. The law must impose additional requirements on employers to pursue Legal Permanent Resident status on behalf of their H-1B visa-based foreign workers, or risk loss of access to the program.
What a joke. That is his position? Suspend H1B visas for 180 days? Is that a typo? Did he mean 180 weeks?
Suspend the issuance of all H-1B visas for 180 days
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In other words, until I am elected.
Ted’s history on this goes back to at least 2000 when he advised Bush to increase them.