Free Republic

Donald Trump's onslaught on immigrants continue. This time, however, he is targeting skilled workers at the top instead of the "huddled masses" at the margins. His administration plans to rescind the policy that allows the spouses (and children) of graduate-level workers to work legally while in the United States. This policy, signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, aimed to create additional incentives for high-skilled workers (H-1B visas) to immigrate to the United States to strengthen American economic and industrial interests. Trump's slated elimination of it is fuelled by the very same brazen xenophobia that galvanised support for the Mexico...

An engineer who worked on Apple’s secretive autonomous car project allegedly stole trade secrets for a Chinese car startup backed by Alibaba, according to new charges filed by the FBI. Xiaolang Zhang, who worked for Apple from December 2015 until May 2018, has been charged in federal court with stealing trade secrets, and faces 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Zhang was arrested trying to leave the country this past weekend. The news was first reported by The Mercury News. “Apple takes confidentiality and the protection of our intellectual property very seriously,” a spokesperson for the company said in...

White-collar salaries are stalling partly because roughly 1.5 million non-immigrant, lower-wage visa-workers have been quietly imported to take many white-collar jobs, sometimes directly from American employees. ... Media descriptions of the controversial H-1B program say it brings in 85,000 foreign graduates per year. But the program actually keeps at least 460,000 foreign workers in the United States. Other estimates put the resident H-1B population at 650,000 or even up to almost 1 million. Similarly, the number of foreign college-grads getting a work-permit via the little-known “Option Practical Training” program rose again in 2018, despite President Donald Trump’s “Hire American” policy....

Mar-a-Lago seeks to hire 40 foreign waiters and waitresses under the H-2B visa program, which allows American employers to hire foreigners on a seasonal basis if there is not a sufficient supply of qualified Americans.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/26/gop-leaders-propose-massive-surge-low-skilled-fore/

American Elite Molding LLC (AEM), a manufacturer based in Crestview, Florida, is suing a competitor, Advanced Cable Ties Inc. (ACT), for employing undocumented workers.....[AEM] specifically states [that AEM] has lost contracts and had to lower its prices as a result of ACT's alleged labor practices.

The Trump administration is examining ways U.S. industries could hire more immigrant workers on a temporary basis, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday, as data showed the United States unemployment rate at an 18-year low.

Most Pacific Northwesterners spend long, rainy months pining for summer. But Microsoft President Brad Smith is having a hard time celebrating because he sees three clouds on the political horizon. During an appearance at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on Tuesday, Smith told Recode’s Kara Swisher that he has three immigration-related concerns that could make this “a tough summer.” If President Donald Trump takes any of the actions Smith warned about, Microsoft employees would be directly impacted. Smith told Swisher he is worried that Republicans and Democrats will fail to reach a compromise on DACA, a program...

Trump: "For the farmers its going to get really good. We're going to let your guestworkers come in, because we have to have strong borders, but we have to let your workers in.....But we're gonna let them in because you need them....Guestworkers, don't we agree? We have to have them."

The disease, which kills up to 75% of those infected, starts with flu-like symptoms and causes a brain-swelling condition known as encephalitis. The virus has not yet spread beyond two areas in south India, according to officials, but they have issued a series of warnings to people living in the stricken towns where more than 200 people are being treated in hospitals. Over 25 people are under strict observation and another three are in a critical condition. … There is no vaccine for nipah, which is listed alongside ebola and zika as one of eight priority diseases by the World...

NEW YORK: Indian IT services giant Wipro is "localising more" in the US and more than half of its workforce in the country now consists of locals, the company's Chief Strategy Officer Rishad Premji said asserting that the firm is very committed to the US market. Premji, who is Member of the Board at Wipro, said Wipro currently has a workforce of over 14,000 employees in the US and 58 per cent of those are locals. Under the Donald Trump administration, there is heightened scrutiny of the H1B work visa programme, which several lawmakers allege is being abused to replace...

The Department of Homeland Security announced at 3:46 pm today [Friday] that it will allow various U.S. employers 15,000 additional H-2B workers this summer; they will do unskilled, non-agricultural seasonal work...The 15,000 will be in addition to the 66,000 permits in this program that have already been issued in keeping with the long-standing statutory ceiling.

The unemployment rate is down, and employers are howling for more immigration because they say they can’t get enough workers.Their howling should be music to our ears.I don’t say this out of any animus — my mom and both grandfathers were small businessmen. Heck, I run a small (non-profit) business myself. But a tight labor market means that our fellow citizens who are the least attractive to employers — and on whose support we collectively spend billions — suddenly become a lot more attractive.Advertisement In other words, a tight labor market is the best social policy. America wins when employers...

Immigration officials have sharply increased audits of companies to verify that their employees are authorized to work in the country, signaling the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration is reaching deeper into the workplace to create a “culture of compliance” among employers who rely on immigrant labor. Expansive plans also have been drafted for a long-term push to scrutinize employers’ hiring practices more closely. Under a 1986 federal law, companies must verify their employees are authorized to work in the United States by reviewing their documents and verifying to the government the employees’ identity and work authorization. If employers are...

Immigration officials published data Friday showing a program that gives spouses of H-1B visa holders permission to work in the United States is largely used by Indian women. The release comes just a few weeks before the Department of Homeland Security is expected to propose a rule that would unwind the program, known as the Employment Authorization for Certain H-4 Dependent Spouses.

A group of outsourcing companies that use the H-1B visa to fill U.S. jobs with foreign workers have filed a lawsuit claiming recent U.S. government restrictions on the visa program are illegal. The legal action attacks a February policy change by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration that imposed tighter requirements on outsourcers seeking H-1B visas, which are intended for jobs requiring specialized skills and a bachelor’s degree or higher. In the suit, two companies and a consortium that has been lobbying Congress over H-1B restrictions claimed Citizenship and Immigration lacked the authority to make the rule changes, and that the alleged...

It slashed IBM’s U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years. In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well...

The new spending bill covering the remainder of the fiscal year includes a provision to again allow the Department of Homeland Security to exceed the annual cap on admissions of unskilled non-agricultural workers. This step, if fully implemented by USCIS, potentially would add as many as 63,000 additional H-2B guest workers next year, nearly doubling the size of this program.

Anti H1B posters have been plastered in Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) train stations, will soon be seen inside trains in the heart of San Francisco Bay Area and will stay there for at least a full month in an ad buy worth $80,000 bang in the middle of the new H1B filing season which opens April 2.BART is among the busiest rapid transport systems in the United States with an average of ~ 425,000 weekday passengers and ~124 million annual passengers in fiscal year 2017.Paid for by Progressives for Immigration Reform, the anti H1B adÂ’s lexicon fans the very...

Six Bay Area members of Congress have signed onto a letter asking the Department of Homeland Security to scrap a plan to prevent spouses of H-1B visa holders from obtaining work permits. The department in December announced the plan, citing President Donald Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, and said it would carry out the plan this year. The work-permit program for H-1B holders’ spouses was initiated in 2015 under former President Barack Obama.