GOP Budget Doubles Controversial Guest Worker Program
Article publisher:
LifeZette
Article date:
3 May 2017
Article category:
National News
Medium
Article Body:
The compromise $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep the federal government open through September includes a back-door expansion of a program that allows companies to bring in foreigners to work low-skill jobs.
By law, the total number of H-2B visas that can be issued in any year is 66,000. But the spending bill that the House will vote on Wednesday includes a provision that could more than double that for the rest of the fiscal year.
“You could potentially bring in another 66,000 workers just in the next four months,” said Rob Law, director of government relations for the Federation for American Immigration Reform...
This is not the first time Congress has used the appropriations process to play with the cap on temporary workers. A couple of years ago, Republican leaders slipped a provision in a spending bill that allowed anyone who had worked in America on an H-2B visa in 2013, 2014 or 2015 to return without counting against the cap. Congress passed such returning-worker provisions in the first decade of the 21st century as well...