Opinion: H-2B visas: one step forward, one step back?
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The Labor Department announced today that it wants to streamline the process of handing out H-2B visas [pdf], meant for workers entering the country temporarily to perform non-agricultural jobs.
It seems like a good move, considering that the Senate nixed two riders to the war spending bill — one for agricultural labor and one for other workers — that would have made it easier for workers to stay in or return to the country. And it shows that Labor, like Homeland Security, is making whatever regulatory moves it can in the absence of broad immigration reform (which would presumably either raise the 66,000-visa cap or let it vary year by year depending on demand).
And ideally, broad immigration reform would link H-2B visa increases with an increase in opportunities for permanent residency, or at least renewable visas. The editorial board made a similar point with regard to H-1B visas:
Visa holders who seek to become lawful permanent residents face enormous backlogs that will only grow if more H1-B visa holders who seek to become lawful permanent residents face enormous backlogs that will only grow if more H1-B visas are granted. Ideally, an increase in H1-B visa quotas would be accompanied by an increase in the quota for green cards. Skilled workers are also more likely to stay and contribute to the U.S. economy if their immediate families can join them here; currently, family members also face severe backlogs.
Without such a comprehensive approach, including enforcement of fraud, the U.S. would be saddled with more illegal immigrants (if visa holders simply let their visas run out) or labor trafficking horror stories. One such story is unfolding now — Indian workers launched a hunger strike last week in Washington D.C. As the Hindustan Times reports:
The five workers who began the ‘water only’ protest at Lafayette Park opposite the US presidential mansion Wednesday were among more than 500 Indian welders and pipe fitters who allegedly paid up to $20,000 apiece for false promises of green cards and work-based permanent residency in the US.
Instead, the workers, who have been joined by six others, say they received only H-2B visas and poor working conditions.
(Incidentally, I quite like that paper’s reference to the White House as the presidential mansion. Of course, one might note that ‘mansion’ is probably too humble a term for the Indian President’s home.)