{"id":23529,"date":"2020-08-25T14:05:57","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T18:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=23529"},"modified":"2020-08-25T15:02:57","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T19:02:57","slug":"h1b-visas-joe-biden-expansion-agenda-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/08\/25\/h1b-visas-joe-biden-expansion-agenda-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden is the &#8220;B&#8221; in H-1B Visas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Over 47 years in political office, Joe Biden has stood on multiple sides of key immigration issues. He once believed that <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?c4706021\/zoe-baird-explains-sen-joe-biden-husband-understood-violation-law\" target=\"_blank\">hiring an illegal alien nanny<\/a> was \u201ca big deal,\u201d promised not to let sanctuary cities \u201cignore\u201d immigration laws, and said a border wall was needed to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/05\/10\/politics\/kfile-biden-drugs-fence-2006\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">keep drugs from Mexico<\/a> out of the United States. But where the H-1B visa program is concerned, Biden has remained blind to the anecdotal and empirical evidence offered by critics on the left and the right that it harms American workers, lowers wages, and has become akin to \u201c<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@thinkthank\/modern-day-slavery-in-america-the-h1b-visa-800be3a3df54\" target=\"_blank\">modern day slavery<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dopemagazine.com\/amazon-indentured-servitude\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">indentured servitude<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A recently-released <a href=\"https:\/\/joebiden.com\/indian-americans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">agenda tailored for Indian-Americans<\/a>, one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups, is a warning of the potential that it would be an \u201cH-1B\u201d-iden administration. Seemingly ignorant to the reality that millions of Americans are still unemployed, in need of vocational re-training, or graduating into a job market that is severely-constricted in most industries, Biden wants to inject the program with steroids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His proposal would:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Increase\nthe number of permanent, work-based immigration visas<\/li><li>Exempt\nfrom <em>any<\/em> immigration caps recent\ngraduates of PhD programs in STEM fields <\/li><li>Eliminate\nlimits on employment-based green cards by country, thereby allowing China and\nIndia to disproportionately benefit.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden already promised during a June <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ufSvutH_k8c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">digital town hall<\/a> hosted by NBC News to overturn President Trump\u2019s order to temporarily pause H-1B visas through 2020. He justified his support by stating that \u201cthe people who came here on the [H-1B] visas built this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since he was in his 17<sup>th<\/sup> year in the U.S. Senate\nwhen Congress created the visa program in 1990, Biden knows his claim was\nabsurd. But he also knows, having been in elected office for the majority of\nthe program\u2019s life, how corporations and outsourcing firms have weaponized\nforeign worker visas for the benefit of their bottom line and to the detriment\nof American and immigrant workers alike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider a handful of studies and news reports published since\nthe program was created that have highlighted its failings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>In 2004, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandoweekly.com\/orlando\/mike-emmons-is-mad-as-hell\/Content?oid=2259952\" target=\"_blank\">Siemens fired<\/a> experienced tech workers and forced them to retrain their foreign replacements. <\/li><li>A <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU&amp;feature=emb_logo\" target=\"_blank\">video was released in 2007<\/a> showing immigration lawyers from a Pittsburgh-area law firm discussing how companies run ads seeking American workers even though they intend on hiring H-1B visa holders \u2013 even those far less qualified than American applicants. <\/li><li>A 2008 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/nation-world\/report-finds-fraud-in-20-of-h-1b-applications\/\" target=\"_blank\">found fraud<\/a> existed in 20 percent of all H-1B applications.<\/li><li>When Biden was vice president, Disney was enveloped in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2015\/06\/disney-h1b-visas-immigration-layoffs\/396149\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">best-known H-1B scandal<\/a> that resulted in thousands of Americans being fired and forced to retrain their foreign replacements.&nbsp; <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, Biden knew early in the second Obama term, that <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/riskfactor\/at-work\/tech-careers\/stem-crisis-as-myth-gets-yet-another-workout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">there was a glut<\/a>, not a shortage, of American STEM graduates and those close to Biden knew that even before then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe [H-1B] looks to me like an inelegant solution to what I don&#8217;t even know is a problem. Inelegant because there&#8217;s no labor market test. The evidence is that it creates downward wage pressure,\u201d <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2012\/07\/need-to-import-workers-sparks-debate\/428202\/\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> Jared Bernstein, a then-former senior economic adviser to Vice President Biden. His comments were made at a 2012 event marking the release of a Brookings Institution report favorable to the H-1B visa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that those &nbsp;H-1B visa holders who allegedly \u201cbuilt this country\u201d were not all that they were cracked up to be, as noted in a 2013 Economic Policy Institute (EPI) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epi.org\/publication\/bp356-foreign-students-best-brightest-immigration-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">analysis<\/a> that contradicted the assertion that foreign workers strengthen America\u2019s own high-skilled workforce. The study found that using multiple measures, \u201cformer foreign students have talent lesser than, or equal to, their American peers,\u201d and that high-skilled foreign worker programs contribute to \u201can internal brain drain\u201d in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2016, three researchers from Notre Dame University, the University of California at Berkeley and the Obama Treasury Department respectively authored a <a href=\"https:\/\/gspp.berkeley.edu\/assets\/uploads\/research\/pdf\/h1b.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">critical paper<\/a> that showed how the program had veered from its intent. They discovered by comparing two firms \u2013 one that used H-1B visas and one that did not \u2013 that U.S. workers did not benefit from having foreign co-workers. In fact, \u201cNew H-1Bs substantially and statistically significantly crowd out median employment of other workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Biden\u2019s blindness to the H-1B con should make every voter\nquestion his sincerity when he says he will reform the program before expanding\nit. He has had 30 years to support numerous reform efforts, to increase funding\nto minority STEM education, to redirect government\u2019s focus to worker retraining\nor any number of policies that would benefit hard-working Americans. He chose\nnot to \u2013 again and again and again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 47 years in political office, Joe Biden has stood on multiple sides of key immigration issues. He once believed that hiring an illegal alien nanny was \u201ca big deal,\u201d promised not to let sanctuary cities \u201cignore\u201d immigration laws, and said a border wall was needed to keep drugs from Mexico out of the United<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/08\/25\/h1b-visas-joe-biden-expansion-agenda-immigrationreform-com\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":23534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[9068,11],"tags":[1524,986,831,536],"yst_prominent_words":[1938,2169,5406,9662,9126,2181,7425,8291,1932,4199,4273,1934,1963,9664,9663,1933,5214,4274,3905,1937],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23529"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23535,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23529\/revisions\/23535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23529"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}