Dear All:
Earlier this week, the deadline passed for filing comments on the H-1B visa rule that prioritizes selection based on HIGHEST wages. The rule change was slated to become effective on Jan. 8 but was delayed by the administration until December. DHS opened up the rule change to public comment.
The rule would have eliminated the H-1B visa lottery and put in its place a system that prioritized awarding visas based on salaries offered. We delivered our comments, as did a number of organizations and activists who testified not only to the need for this rule change, but that it needs to be implemented as expeditiously as possible. Both senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin also wrote a joint letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking him to not waste any time implementing this rule.
Dissenting opinions were filed by those who have grown accustomed, if not dependent, on a steady stream of compliant and less expensive foreign pools of labor. It is a diverse group ranging from the American Medical Association to the National Association of Manufacturers.
As the H-1B registration for fiscal year 2022 will close on March 25, the delay of the rule change means this year’s lottery will be conducted in the same fashion as in prior years. Moreover, with the H-1B entry ban due to expire at the end of the month, the brief respite U.S. tech workers have enjoyed from the systemic influx of cheap foreign labor is about to end.
In Other News
Progressive Henry George said, “There are people into whose heads it never enters to conceive of any better state of society than that which now exists.” Amazingly, our political, social and industry elites cannot conceive of a world in which profit is not maximized through the uninhibited movement of people and capital across international borders. Forty years of globalists’ policies have hollowed out America’s middle class and set them on a downward trajectory that has left us financially and morally bankrupt.
Muckraker Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” So how do we inform our elites that they have not only failed mightily, but that they have placed all of us in the greatest danger?
Perhaps a ray or two of hope emerged this week to help us with just that. Rachel Rosenthal’s deep dive into the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program was published by Bloomberg. “STEM Graduates Deserve a Better Path to Good Jobs” details how and why the OPT program is a bigger threat to jobs in STEM than the H-1B visa program. Her much-needed informative piece needs to be shared broadly.
One of the movement’s stalwart champions, John Miano, is preparing to return to the D.C. Circuit Court with the WashTech v. DHS lawsuit. At the heart of Miano’s case is a simple question: What constitutes a bonafide student solely pursuing a course of study at an academic institution versus not a student? The term student should not be ambiguous in this instance. If Miano prevails in his lawsuit, the entire OPT program could come to a screeching halt.
In addition, Pedro Gonzalez penned an opinion piece in Newsweek, “United States of America vs. Silicon Valley,” that discusses the recent Department of Justice case against Facebook and how key findings in that case expose the skilled-based immigration sham.
Looking Ahead
Here in the northeast, spring appears to have sprung with temperatures hitting the low ‘60s. With that comes the feeling that all life is cyclical, and hope does spring eternal. Over the last few years, we have had our ups and downs, victories and defeats. Let us commit in the coming weeks to renew our commitment to our movement and seek opportunities to make our livelihoods more secure.
In Solidarity.
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