Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
When are they going to get to Facebook and Google?
Unless of course you believe in limited government and a free economy. Then its just more government picking winners and losers and trying to micromanage the economy.
What right does the government have to dictate who can or can’t work?
Well, those two companies hire a lot of Americans, so not sure. It would take a complaint from someone who was qualified but turned down for a H-2A applicant. If companies have any sense, they will realize it is time to stop. The impact of the DOJ filings should be to serve notice that it’s time to cut out that nonsense.
I would expect that it would also apply to H-1B, and they hire boatloads of those, with vast numbers of STEM graduates unable to find jobs.
It’s called national sovereignty, which is the sine qua non of having a country. It is perfectly within the rights of a country to prefer its citizens and permanent residents in many matters, work permits included. Citizens enjoy many privileges that non-citizens do not.
Only in an open-borders utopia (or should I say dystopia) is the citizenship status of individuals irrelevant.
The H-2A Visa is offered by the Government. By virtue of this government action Foreign Workers are allowed legally into the country, with all the benefits of complying with immigration law. Without this government action these foreign workers would not be allowed into the country. A company wishing to hire these applicants must show that they cannot find Citizens for the work before they are allowed to hire them.
So the government action is the only thing that allows any of these Visa holders to enter the country. If you wish to have the government not involved in the employment relationship, we could just get rid of the H-2A visa.
Why would an American company favor immigrant hiring over native hiring? Is there any other possible explanation than qualification/ability and costs associated with the hiring? Shouldn’t a company be free to make those decisions for itself?
Immigrants.Are.Cheaper. Companies have forced their US workers to train their cheaper foreign replacements (if they want their severance payments).
Right… disallowing companies the ability to bring in cheaper foreign labor, gives them motive to just move the work to low wage countries for that cheaper labor…
They already tried that, and found that that brings a whole new set of problems. Bringing the foreign workers here is the best of both worlds. Cheap foreign labor without the need to do business in the third world.
It costs money to move the work out of the country and the wage gap has to be sufficient to make it feasible. If we can get taxes lowered and change regulations then the wage differential will be less likely to pay for the move.
It’s the whole package but it starts with respecting our companies and getting government out of their greedy, greedy, greedy grasping mode of operating against their own citizens.
Hard to move landscaping maintenance, house framing, and other construction work to low wage countries. Yet it appears none of the workers speak English, just the foreman. Things that make one go “hmm.”
Yep, three years ago, in October of 2014, the deep darkness of the Obama years. Disney got a lot of hate for that, and I doubt anyone will every try that nonsense again. In fact, Disney almost tried it again about 6 months later and the hate rose so quickly that they canceled the layoffs and let the people keep working.
The wording is pretty clear that the employers should seek Americans for the jobs and only apply for H-1Bs if they can’t fill the positions. All Trump and Sessions are doing is making sure the employers are making that effort. The Obama Administration did not bother to check, from what I have been reading.
Right… keeps/increases jobs here at lower wages allowing companies to make more money ( and create their product cheaper) hopefully keeping prices to the consumer from rising as much or even declining. Only real loser is the worker being replaced, but the free market is saying you are overpaid, you need to either acquire new skills, accept a lower wage, or find something more valuable to do….
Do you think that people will be satisfied with the third world standard of living that this will produce?
National Sovereignty! Doesn’t give the government the right to keep people from speaking, or ban them practicing their religion. The people have rights and these rights are not granted by the government. They are theirs by virtue of being human. What constitutional power allows the government to even create such a thing as a work permit for citizen or non-citizen. This is my argument. The very notion that you need the government permission to work should cause every red-blooded American to spit and curse in rage at the very notion.
If American companies are more competitive on a worldwide basis, why would we descend to third world standard of living?
That is fine. I don’t have a preference for this visa to exist or not. Nor do I think people have any inherent right to enter the US without presenting themselves for inspection and approval. But the issue of visas and the government granting permission for work I think are two separate things. If you allow a person into the country they should be free to engage in any normal and lawful activity. It is not the governments place to manage the labor market.
They aren’t American companies anymore, they are global companies, integrating us into the global economy. Explain to me why we won’t end up with the average global standard of living under your plan.
The logic that leads you to this statement would also lead you to favoring strict population control. No matter where workers come from domestic or foreign in creases in overall population and labor pool should have the same effect. I don’t hear the worries about too many babies being born for the labor market to support. If the amount of goods consumed and produced was fixed then your concern would be valid. But this is not the case. Having more workers will ultimately mean producing not just cheaper goods but more kinds of goods.
Nope, it doesn’t, at least not in the US. But we’re not talking about that, are we. The discussion is about work permits.
There is no human right to work wherever you want, or even to live wherever you want. Almost every country in the world controls foreign labor through work permits. But, of course, you knew that.
The real question is, why are you trying to change the subject? Usually, it’s done when reason and argument fail.
Many likes for this, Doc. Excellent.
No need to go fascist. I’m not saying there should be strict controls on anything of the sort. I’m saying it might be better if the government didn’t implement policies that seem designed to reduce the standard of living of the average American citizen. And there is nothing wrong with either such an opinion or removing such policies.
Valiuth is describing the relationship that existed between Canada and the U.S. just a few decades ago. My wife is Canadian and she has people on both sides of the border — some just moved across and settled down. My daughter married a Canadian and his family is really heterodox in terms of provenance.
V, we live in a different world now. I understand your points but I’m not sure we can run your experiment and have it be reversible if you are wrong.
I remember in the 90’s when I was programming a purchasing program and I had to write code for the VAT because we had Canadian businesses and customers. It was a huge mess. Imagine how badly our Congress could muck it up. No thanks, I would prefer a nice flat Income Tax.
I hope they look into the Tech fields. I have seen many American IT personnel dismissed and can’t find jobs while foreign H1B types are brought in by the plane loads. If you work in IT and you are not a foreigner or a minority your chances at employment are greatly reduced.
On my twitter feed this morning, an economist getting in the weeds on the issue…. http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5212.html
If companies are abusing the H visa, we need to change or tighten the visa laws, but telling firms who to hire is really dangerous, it’s what the left wants to do and will if the practice is allowed. Was this a suit for abusing the law or using it? That difference matters. The whole idea that our government knows who tens of thousands of firms should hire is absurd, only our far left and idiot progressive Democrats believe such nonsense. Our government has too much power, our Federal prosecutors are scary as are almost all regulatory agencies. This is precisely the kind of behavior that made us weary of Trump the candidate and why we called him progressive at the time. Please don’t make us right, I was getting quite hopeful.
Another story
You certainly cannot imagine an Obama administration cracking down on hiring illegals. Very good for Trump.
Yes, we can:
And from the Cato Institute:
This is not meant to praise Obama or bash Trump. We won’t know how Trump stacks up in terms of arrests/deportations/scaring away immigrants until well after his term is over. He may end up far surpassing his predecessors in this regard – or not.
My point is: politics isn’t neat and simple. Obama actually did enforce some anti-immigrant measures much more strongly than Bush. He also did a lot to help other illegal immigrants.