Outgoing Mayorkas Gives US Workers Middle Finger

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, the major culprit in the unconstitutional open border crime that has, including gotaways, admitted --- 10 million, 12 million, 15 million; no one truly knows---has shown his middle finger to American workers. Using his authority, Mayorkas announced in mid-November his intention to double H-2B visas which would add 64,716, the maximum allowable, temporary non-immigrant, non-agricultural visas to the congressionally mandated 66,000. Practically speaking, the word visa translates to jobs denied to American workers that instead are awarded to foreign nationals.  Add 64,716 to 66,000 and the jobs total that American workers could do but will  be given to H-2B visa holders is more than 130,000.  The labor market, flooded with thousands of low-paid visa holders, makes employment conditions for citizen minority workers more challenging. For several recent months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports showed that most new jobs went to foreign nationals.

The U.S. will set aside 20,000 of the additional visas for workers from Haiti and the so-called Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The balance will be available to returning workers, who previously were employed in the U.S. on the same H-2B visa. Worth noting: the U.S. has provided generously for three of the four set aside beneficiaries, Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador on the Temporary Protected Status which is more permanent than temporary since the status rolls over every eighteen months. Haiti is also included in the illegal CHNV Parole Program which operates with President Joe Biden’s blessing but without congressional approval, an action typical of the White House’s disregard for immigration law.

Mayorkas’ decision also further confirms the Biden administration’s goal to initiate more sleight of hand pathways for illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. In June, the U.S. and more than a dozen Latin American nations signed a migration pact at Los Angeles’ Summit of the Americas, which called on countries across the region to create new visas and temporary humanitarian protections for illegal aliens moving through the Darien Gap headed toward the Southwestern Border.

Employers have vigorously lobbied for lifting the H-2B cap, falsely claiming that an acute job shortage exists and that their corporate survival depends on easy access to more foreign-born labor. For nearly four decades, however, both conservative and liberal-leaning institutions have published numerous reports that focused on the false claims about a labor shortage as well as the fraud and abuse inherent in the H-2B visa. The Economic Policy Institute, with supporting government data, wrote that no shortage exists among the top 15 H-2B employers that includes landscapers, forest and conservation workers, housekeepers and other positions that Americans would, assuming a fair wage, eagerly fill. The H-2B program’s record on fraud and abuse is shameful, and Mayorkas’ pledge to initiate “robust protections for U.S. and foreign workers alike,” lacks credibility just like his “the border is secure” and other immigration-related lies. Mayorkas undermined his promise to deliver “robust protections” when he emphasized the need for continuous employment-based visa inflow that, in his words, will “contribute to the American economy.”

Instead of contributing to the U.S. economy, the H-2B destabilizes it. Citing data from the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), the EPI calculated that nearly $1.8 billion in “wage theft” is spread across the seven industries that are H-2B dependent. Of 225,227 WHD investigations between 2000 and 2021, violations were found in 180,451 cases. Put differently, whenever WHD investigates an employer in one of the seven major H-2B industries, there is an 80 percent likelihood of one or more violations committed. Financial penalties imposed on the violators totaled nearly $115 million, with half of them assessed in the food service and construction sectors. The fines are a slap on the wrist; they represent 6.4% of the estimated wage theft.

Cheap labor addicted employers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and several dozen members of Congress heartily support the H-2B increase and share their enthusiasm with the unquestioning mainstream media. A recent mopey story out of Maine quoted two employers who insisted that they could find no U.S. workers to wait tables in ritzy resort hotels or work in landscaping, a claim absurd on its face. The Cliff House Resort’s managing director, Nancy White, said, “They don't want to live here. They come here to work. They fill jobs that we cannot fill with local workers." White is naïve and underinformed. Naturally, her Haitian, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran employees want to remain in the U.S., and a significant number will stay after their three-year visas expire at which time their immigration status will convert to illegal aliens. From the chamber came a plea to remove the H-2B cap. Jon Baselice, vice president of immigration policy said, “Congress needs to do more to provide added certainty and predictability for seasonal businesses that are struggling to fill their job openings.” When employers, the donor-dependent congressional representatives, and the Chamber of Commerce all want more H-2B’s even though inarguable evidence points to fraud and abuse, watch out. They’re working in their own interests, not the American public’s.

The standard talking point used among H-2B advocates to promote the flawed visa is that not enough U.S. workers are available, and foreign-born laborers are therefore urgently needed. But the traditional solution to labor shortages is to pay higher wages, a fail-safe remedy to reverse the discredited claim that Americans won’t do seasonal jobs.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org