Build the wall, but tear Wall down?
If coronavirus doesn’t kill South Dakota’s summer tourism industry, Donald Trump will. Despite Senator Marion Michael Rounds’s cries for expansion of the H-2B visa program to help the Husteads and other South Dakota tourism magnates import labor from overseas, anti-immigrant Trump has extended his freeze on visas for many foreign workers:
Existing visa holders are not expected to be affected under the new restrictions announced on Monday.
The order also applies to H-1B visas, many of which are granted to Indian tech workers. Critics say these visas have allowed Silicon Valley companies to outsource American jobs to lower-paid foreign employees. Last year, there were about 225,000 applications competing for 85,000 spots available through the H1-B visa programme.
The order will suspend most H-2B visas for seasonal workers, including those in the hospitality industry, except those in agriculture, the food processing industry and healthcare professionals.
The order will restrict J-1 short-term exchange visas, a category that includes university students and foreign au pairs who provide childcare. Professors and scholars are not included in the order. There will be a provision to request exemptions.
L visas for managers and other key employees of multinational corporations will also be suspended [“H-1B Among Visas Hit by Trump’s New Foreign Worker Freeze,” BBC, 2020.06.23].
Just before coronavirus went hot, Senator Rounds was touting the Administration’s decision to make 35,000 more temporary non-ag H-2B visas available. Senator Rounds has not spoken up yet as to whether he supports this latest White House action against the interests of South Dakota tourism and other industries, but as recently as May 27, Senator Rounds was urging Trump not to restrict H-2B visas:
The call comes as some conservative lawmakers have called for the suspension of work visas amid widespread unemployment. According to the lawmakers, most states rely on guest workers “to help keep their forestry, landscaping, seafood, and hospitality businesses open.”
“Some of these struggling small businesses rely on labor that many Americans may not be qualified or able to perform, even in the aftermath of the pandemic, and some of these businesses operate in industry sectors that are not experiencing high unemployment—in contrast with the overall national unemployment figures—or in particular geographical locations where qualified labor is scarce,” the senators wrote in a letter addressed to President Trump [J. Edward Moreno, “GOP Senators Urge Trump Not to Restrict Guest Worker Visas,” The Hill, 2020.05.27].
So much for having the ear of the White House. Hey, weren’t we supposed to get better treatment by electing a Republican Senator and a Republican President?
Here is protection you can bank on. Moar effective than birth control, to be sure…..
South Dakota gov warns Mount Rushmore won’t be targeted: ‘Not on my watch’
Governor Kristi Noem
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@govkristinoem
Not on my watch. https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1275169918309281792 …
Ben Shapiro
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@benshapiro
So, when is our woke historical revisionist priesthood going to insist on blowing up Mount Rushmore?
76.8K
8:09 AM – Jun 23, 2020
I’m guessing if it blows while she is looking at a crowd, then she gets to claim she wasn’t on watch.
I guess it’s too late to think that Thune/Rounds/Dusty will ever wake up to the realization that they re being used. We know Kristi has no clue.
The President’s rational for limiting those work visas was to ensure employment opportunities for US citizens (residents?).
Can SD tourism be the biscuits to soak up all that unemployed gravy? Will SD tourism pay the wages to make their jobs palatable to we who have had a standard of first-world living? Is season-only employment enough for workers to accept that opportunity cost if full-time/longer term employment is available?
Are all who urge “buy local” also “hiring local?”
Meanwhile Trump is also racing to turn over many other institutions before likely losing in November. Besides Immigration, the Friday night massacre at Justice Dept. and many others, Trump is “disgusted” with nonpartisan journalism of VOICE OF AMERICA, which Nazis made listening to short band radio then, punishable by death. It has had the world’s largest audience.
Sounds like Rupert Murdoch is still whispering in Trump’s hairspray. Trump even forced CDC to denunciate and blacklist “communist” VOA reporters (Pulitzer Prize winning) in the middle of the pandemic.
Keeping a democratic voice alive (c), huh?
Trump’s replacement shills include an anti transgenderist blogger, Antigay activist lawyer, membets of Mulvaney and Carson staffs-none witn journalistic experienced. This is a budgeted $200M globe spanning government media empire of the highest standards. Taken over by Trump, ratified by the Senate.
He sacked all of the network executives and board members overnight last Wednesday and replaced them all with his new guy, right wing movie maker Mike Pac, mentored by Breitbart’s Steve Bannon.
Rachel Maddow
But I thought immigrants were taking merkin’s jobs?
Harvesting route and farming this year is brutal. Teams have scraped together enough help but reliable returning foreign help sitting at their own home in their own country. Can’t get in for this or that reason. Local
People that need work can make a living on unemployment, content with that vs coming out in this heat and long hours.
Meanwhile MN plates burning rubber on 212 to get to the river fishing
And the areas are packed , should have raised fishing license a few bucks, they r coming anyway
Rounds fails should have been the entirety of the title and article. Less is moar.
T, what would be the wage/benefit necessary to get US workers to take those jobs in the heat and long hours? What s the wage offered now?
I keep going back to the ND oil field experience; good paying jobs – even tough jobs – will draw workers.
Europe has banned us the US from their country’s. Another proud moment in US history.
“European Union officials confirmed on Friday that the EU would bar American travelers when it reopens its external borders on July 1, The New York Times reported.
The US is among dozens of countries deemed too risky because their coronavirus outbreaks are poorly contained, according to The Times.”https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-travel-ban-americans-eu-coronavirus-final-2020-6?utm_source=reddit.com
Winning, I guess, right up there with the rest of the winners, Russia, Brazil and other s#:+hole country’s, we are now what trump called them and us. I never would’ve thunk it that we would be such a bunch, but here we are.
O
We pay $20 plus meals and board plus$ for clean CDL
H2 depends on state foreign workers get $13.67 to $14 plus room and board
Other crews pay $15 local people room And board
And rely on foreign help
All kinds of openings now from OK to KS on crews
Harvest runs as H2 ag help is shorted
O
Wage is good life is hard, no it isn’t drawing any workers as unemployment and shim is allowing people to “make bank” and b eta home camping w family. Good people offered $20-$22 an hour with food and room paid have declined….. not w us but others as well so we don’t take it personal, just sign of times. Adv in WI NE ND
5 calls with u undesirable driving records, ….