Tag: United States Citizenship and Immigration Service

Immigration: The SEASON Act and its effects

By Cathy Keim

Second in an ongoing series.

I am using my prerogative to switch to a different immigration topic because a friend sent this Breitbart article and pointed out that Rep. Andy Harris is on the list, as is Senator Barbara Mikulski. As I mentioned before, immigration is such a broad subject that one cannot cover all the angles in just an article or two.

I actually wrote to Andy Harris about the Strengthen Employment and Seasonal Opportunities Now (SEASON) Act (H.R. 3918) back on November 12. I saw him later that day at the Kathy Szeliga event and I asked him about his support for this bill.

He stated that the Obama administration had changed the regulations about the H2B visa program and HR 3918 was merely to return things to the way they were done previously, adding that employers needed the foreign workers to do these jobs that Americans will not do. I asked about the families of H2B workers and he said that they were not allowed to bring their families with them.

But I checked on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) website and it clearly states that:

Any H-2B worker’s spouse and unmarried children under 21 years of age may seek admission in H-4 nonimmigrant classification. Family members are not eligible for employment in the United States while in H-4 status.

So I must disagree with the Congressman’s assertion. My concern was that if the families enter with the worker, then they will most certainly have an impact on the local economy as the children enroll in school and utilize other social services.

The H2B visa worker may be a boon for the employer, but the rest of the community is underwriting the social service costs for the cheap labor. In addition, we are paying the welfare costs of our unemployed citizens who could be working instead of a foreign worker. The taxpayer is picking up the tab in every direction while the employer is improving his profits.

The employers complain that Americans won’t do these jobs, but it is likely that they would do them if they were paid a fair wage. The employers utilize the H2B visa program to bring in foreign workers to keep the wages depressed.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management:

In a separate final rule, the departments unveiled the methodology for determining the prevailing wage that must be paid to H-2B workers.

(snip)

The Economic Policy Institute’s (vice-president Ross) Eisenbrey expressed disappointment that the rule allows alternative wage surveys to set the prevailing wage. “Employers only use these alternative surveys to ensure that they can pay their workers the least possible amount, rather than using credible and reliable survey data compiled by DOL,” he said, pointing to the seafood industry as an example as having used private wage surveys to justify “paying their H-2B workers wages near the federal minimum wage for grueling work like crab-picking, rather than the higher average wages paid across Virginia and Maryland for similar work.”

Here is a link to information about the changes to the H2B visa program that were put into effect in April of this year.

I also asked Mike Smigiel, who is running against Andy Harris for the First Congressional District seat, for a statement about HR 3918. Smigiel said:

With our real unemployment numbers over 11% and the workforce participation at one of its lowest levels in years we clearly have a workforce that is hard pressed to find employment. The most vulnerable sector of the workforce are youth, legal immigrants, and those with a high school education or less. Record numbers of Americans are living in poverty and surviving on food stamps, it is hard to fathom that Congress would expand the H2-B program to an all time high.

What Congressman Harris failed to address is the fact that those here on the H2-B program can bring their spouses and families in under the H-4 visas. Do you think that the spouses and children of those coming in under the H-4 visa program are not going to be working, going to school, getting sick? These associated costs will be additional burdens upon our already strained economy.

Our first obligation should be to helping our unemployed and underemployed citizens by providing this most vulnerable sector of the workforce work training and providing incentives to employers to hire citizens for the jobs.

It is disingenuous of Congressman Harris to sponsor this legislation since just a few months ago he voted to prohibit American poultry, beef or pork producers from listing the country of origin on their products. This does not benefit the consumer or farm workers but makes it easier for large farming corporations to take their operations overseas where labor is cheaper and there are fewer regulations placed upon their farming operations. Their products can then be sold in the US without any notice that they were not raised here. So thanks to Congressman Harris we may be eating Chinese chickens with American companies’ names on the product.

Once again, I would encourage you to pick up your phone and call Congressman Andy Harris and Senator Barbara Mikulski and ask them to not support HR 3918. Let’s put our own citizens back to work.

Creating a class of economic refugees

By Cathy Keim

Remember the thousands of children that mobbed our borders last year? They are not in the news now, but our government has not forgotten them. In fact, in an effort to mitigate the dangers that they face as they travel by train from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala through Mexico to our southern border, our benevolent government implemented a program that began last December called the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program (CAM).

On Tuesday I listened in on a conference call hosted by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) and the Department of State (DOS). They pointed out that CAM falls under the US Refugee Program, which brings 70,000 refugees into the USA each year. Some 4,000 of those are from Central America. If CAM exceeds the allotment, they will be able to increase the numbers up to 2,000 additional persons without any problem.

The goal of this program is family reunification without the child having to take a dangerous trip. Instead of coming by bus or train, they would now be flown to the USA once the parent’s application is approved.

The entire process is at no cost to the family. That means that the American taxpayer is footing the bill for this program in its entirety.

To start the process, the parent who is in the USA must be at least 18 years old, and be here legally in one of six categories:

  • Permanent Resident Status, or
  • Temporary Protected Status, or
  • Parolee, or
  • Deferred Action
  • Deferred Enforced Departure, or
  • Withholding of Removal

They can start the application at any of the 180 refugee resettlement offices conveniently located around the country. They must put money up front for DNA testing, but they will be reimbursed after the child proves to be their child. (There is one exception to this, as I’ll note later.)

(A personal observation: the DNA testing is probably due to the Somali debacle. They found that thousands of Somali “relatives” were not genetically related at all once they started DNA testing!)

Once the application is ready, then the child will be interviewed in Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador (only these three countries are in the program.) The child must be under 21, unmarried, and residing in one of the three countries listed. The child’s parent may be included if the parent is married to the parent residing in the USA. Additionally, if the unmarried child has a child, that child can also be included in the process. Got that?

You could be paying for the spouse and grandchildren to come to the USA in addition to the child.

Specially trained USCIS agents who will determine whether the child qualifies for refugee status will interview the child. If the child does not qualify as a refugee, then they can be processed as a parolee. However, a parolee can only stay for two years, and then they must leave or reapply for parole status.

The refugee status is much preferred as it confers benefits on the child immediately upon entering the USA, such as airport reception, food allowance, help with enrolling in programs such as health care and school – and they can apply for citizenship in five years.

This program is staggering to the imagination. Most people think of refugees as people driven from their homes by war. This scenario seems to be more along the lines of parents that voluntarily leave their children and possibly their spouse behind so that they can seek economic improvement in the USA. Instead of either returning home once they have the financial means to do so or bringing their family to join them once they can legally do so, these parents are helplessly waiting until the refugee contractor fills out the paperwork. Then in about 9 to 12 months their children will be delivered to them by an airplane that was booked by the government who will hand them over to the grateful parent with financial benefits included.

Once this information was disseminated the conference call was opened up to questions. Most of the attendees were representing state agencies or refugee resettlement organizations. Their recurrent theme was that we need more money to implement this program. Other questions included: will the children be safe in their homeland while they wait the months that are needed to verify the applications, will the children be safe once they arrive in the USA (is the receiving parent’s home checked for possible child molesters, etc.) and can exceptions be made in case the child or spouse does not meet the generous requirements.

The USCIS spokesperson and the Department of State spokesperson were both very encouraging on all fronts. Each child’s situation will be decided on a case-by-case basis. They want to open this application process up to the broadest pool possible.

Remember that DNA testing? One caller was worried about a parent being shocked to find out that the child that they believed to be theirs did not have their DNA. That result probably would be distressing to the cuckolded parent. The spokesperson was unperturbed. This would be handled on a case-by-case basis and things might still work out for the child.

One lady wanted to know about the child interview process. What exactly would be asked and what answers were expected? This seemed to be begging for information to feed to the parents to be sure that the child would pass the interview.

Every person except one seemed to be all on board with the rush to implement and expand this program in any way possible.

One caller did ask about the costs associated with the program. What were the projected costs? How was the money budgeted? The spokesperson was unable to offer any information at all because this was a new program, so they just didn’t know! Under probing, he still declined to say that any projections had been made. The caller then asked if the children would be flown on chartered or commercial flights. No answer to that either.

They expect the process to take 9 to 12 months and they only started it four months ago, so that bridge is still off in the distance.

If you are shocked by this information, then you need to go to Ann Corcoran’s fine Refugee Resettlement Watch blog and get up to speed on refugee issues. The CAM program is upsetting, but wait until you hear what the government is doing with Muslim refugees all across our country.