Keep America At Work

Keep America At Work 22 January 2016

How are any of these “Specialty Occupations” when so many Displaced Americans have these skills?

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Why does Andrew Moriarty of FWD.us and the Ames Chamber of Commerce think so little of the people of Iowa?

Andrew Moriarty is the San Francisco Chapter Director for FWD.us — a national organization led by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg focused on mobilizing the tech and business communities to pass comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level — and at Wednesday’s meeting, he spoke about what their missions and comprehensive plans for immigration reform.

for the mass deportation of the 11 million undocumented people living in the country, as well as advocating for severely restricting pathways for folks to come and work and start companies,” Moriarty said. “These are not solutions. There can be a lot of debate on what the best solutions are, but these are not them.”

According to Moriarty, mass deportation would cost upwards of $600 billion, this along with eliminating the H-1B program (which applies to employers seeking to hire non-immigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations), and Moriarty highlighted restricting opportunithree key areas that FWD.us is trying to ad- ties for students would only worsen the current dress with political candidates. They want to situation. He said his group encourages voters, reform immigration to the point that the U.S. especially in Iowa, border is secure; enable where the state’s firstin-the-nation caucuses the best and brightest are less than two weeks people in the world to away, to get informed on come to the U.S. to immigration issues and work; and have a solution for the roughly 11 ask candidates about million undocumented im- their policies on immigration reform. migrants.

“One of the most alarm- “It’s beyond just the ing things that I think average person on the street,” Moriarty we have seen is that there are candidates who said. “There are plenty have advocated for both of elected officials Page Number: 2

that could know a lot more about these programs or issues.”

See more at: http:// amestrib.com/news/iowastate-staff-localemployers-talkimmigration-chamberroundtable#sthash.Shaixv Os.dpuf

It would seem that the farm workers and the STEM workers refuse to go quietly into the night.

On 29 March 2015, US photographer and labour activist David Bacon followed a group of farm workers in the San Quintín Valley in the Mexican state of Baja California as they marched to the US border.

Thousands of workers – who pick strawberries and tomatoes for the US market – went on a twoweek strike in protest over their poverty wages. These farm workers, who mainly come from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and make up the bulk of the agricultural workforce in Baja, are paid about US$9 a day; they are demanding wages of about 300 pe-

sos, or US$24.

Growers bring over whole families, particularly Mixtec and Triqui indigenous peoples, to live in labour camps that are notorious for their poor conditions. The whole operation is reminiscent of the maquiladora [export assembly plants] industry, transplanted into agriculture. http:// www.equaltimes.org/theworkers-of-san-quintinvalley#.VqArByorK70

tion of the Tampa Innovation Alliance, a partnership between USF, Florida Hospital, Busch Gardens, University Mall, the Moffitt Cancer Center and 115 local businesses.

ployers, training institutions and local governments that target workers who don’t have easy access to digital training. The money comes from fees companies pay to the governOn Wednesday, a group of ment to hire higherskilled foreign workers local officials led by Congresswoman Kathy Cas- under the H-1B visa protor held a news confer- gram ence at the University “Specifically, the Tech Mall, where they anHire grant is going to nounced that they will provide our neighbors to be submitting a bid for the opportunity to get a “TechHire” grant. That trained for digital cagrant that could result reers, IT careers, cyin the distribution of a bersecurity careers for few million dollars to the employers in this help develop a home area, and the employers grown high technology of tomorrow who are goworkforce and drive up ing to move to this arhigher-income employment ea,” Castor said. in the area.

The Tampa Innovation Al-

So Tampa area officials are going to train the Displaced American Software Developers from Disney to program so “We’ve got to make sure they can get a job? that everybody has the

liance, created in partnership with other nonprofits and private emAs the economy in Tampa opportunity to have a Bay continues to slowly good job and is trained ployers last year, intends to transform grow out of the six-year and has the skills for the jobs of the future,” roughly 15,000 acres of -old Great Recession, said the Tampa Bay area North Tampa neighborone area that persisCongresswoman. hoods into an economic tently remained low on and innovation zone, the socioeconomic level Last March, President which would include a has been the area around Obama announced his the University of South “TechHire” initiative at tech training program as one facet of the overall Florida in North Tampa. a gathering of the National League of Cities. effort in the area.

There’s now a concenUnder the program, his Former Hillsborough trated effort by local administration would County Commissioner Mark business officials to reverse that situation, provide $100 million in Sharpe leads the Alliance. He says that the culminating in the crea- competitive grants to joint initiatives by em- grant request is modest, Page Number: 3

but ultimately he says he doesn’t want incremental change.

“I want to see transformative change,” he says, adding that the mission of the Tampa Innovation Alliance is about being a partnership and that every person who lives in the area, “has an opportunity to participate.”

ing to work whereas in the U.S. Congress and ending the temporary a member and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus worker visa programs on India and Indian will.

Americans and Nasscom https://youtu.be/ nG2aTNW3BBQ

representatives in New Delhi.

Click on the link above to view the video.

Talks were held on steps to increase the annual bilateral trade from the current $100 billion to $500 billion in the next few years by strengthening India-U.S. partnership in initiatives such as ‘Start-up Mission’ and ‘Make In India’ as well as by resolving all outstanding issues including the recent U.S. visa fee hike, the sources told The Hindu.

Indian industry body CII had said the U.S. visa fee hike is highly discriminatory and punitive and is specifically geared towards India and Indian-centric technology companies.

So the Benedict Arnold’s of our Federal Government are Ron Barton, Hillsborough already working to County Economic Prosper- Displace more Ameriity, Assistant County cans in America?

Administrator, Sarah Combs, University Community Area Development Corporation, Executive Director & CEO and Ed Peachey from CareerSource Tampa Bay are all partners in crafting the grant application, which must be submitted to the federal government by March.

Got news for you Ami Bera, Americans being Displaced is NOT a myth.

In the first backchannel diplomatic effort since the official notification of the recent visa fee hike move by the Obama administration, a group of U.S. Congress Representatives held a meeting with India’s http:// premier software body, www.saintpetersblog.com/ Nasscom, to ensure that archives/250355 such issues were amicably resolved to boost India-U.S. trade and inOur video of the vestment ties.

According to Nasscom, the visa fee hike will restrict and reduce the usage of H1B and L1 visas by Indian technology week can be viewed companies, the sources Sources in the governby clicking on the said. The sources said ment and Nasscom confollowing link and firmed that the meeting since these visas were we are including it between a delegation of for short-term work, the because it will help U.S. Congress Represent- American lawmakers were atives including Ami Be- requested not to confuse show why this rethis issue with immigratraining is not go- ra, the only IndianAmerican Representative tion or spread the “myth Page Number: 4

that hiring of foreign tech workers is hindering employment of local professionals”. http://www.thehindu.com/ news/national/ backchannel-effortsbegin-to-resolve-us-visa -fee-issue/ article8131531.ece Folks, this is why I keep saying that we need the name of every displaced american in America in one place so that they cannot say that we do not exist.

It is through your silence that the Benedict Arnold’s described in this article can slither about like the snakes that they are.

Bottom line, your SILENCE enables more Americans to be Displaced in America.

tional immigration crisis. The report examined only temporary visitors travelling as tourists or business workers, and only those entering at sea and air ports, and yet found that a shocking 527,127 individuals illegally overstayed past their mandatory date of departure.

That’s more than half a million overstays in one year for this one category of aliens. These figures do not include any foreign students or any other foreign worker programs such as the H1B, the L-1, the H-2B and many, many more. Nor does it include those who arrived through land ports, thus millions who came on border crossing cards are excluded. And, because this report was only generated using biographic data, and not biometric data, the true number of overstays is likely much higher,” Sessions says in a statement in response to the report.

This long-awaited report from the Department of Homeland Security demonstrates that we are in the midst of a national immigration “The report finds thoucrisis. sands of illegal over-

from Libya, 219 from Afghanistan, 219 from Yemen, 440 from Syria, 564 from Iran, 681 from Iraq, 922 from Indonesia, 1,147 from Bangladesh, and 1,435 from Pakistan. All of these figures refer to those who both illegally overstayed their visas and were believed to still be present illegally inside the United States at the end of the last fiscal year. http:// www.weeklystandard.com/ sessions-visa-overstaystantamount-to-an-openborder/article/2000662

Why should we limit employer liability when the future of America is at stake?

I’m sorry, but if we investigate a drug dealer and we find that they are doing more than we thought they were doing, then we should go over their enterprise with a fine tooth comb.

Traditionally, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) has used the stays for business work- complaint of a single H“This long-awaited re1B employee to investiport from the Department ers and tourist aliens (the B-visa) from high- gate a company’s entire of Homeland Security H-1B program. Following demonstrates that we are risk regions, including: the latest decision from 56 illegal overstays in the midst of a nathe 8th Circuit, this Page Number: 5

approach is likely to cease.

The 8th Circuit held that the underlying Congressional statue, “expressly ties the [DOL’s] initial investigative authority to the complaint and those specific allegations.” The DOL must have “reasonable cause” to extend the scope of an investigation.

In the Greater Missouri Medical Pro-Care Providers case, the H-1B employer hired several Physical and Occupational Therapists. One of these Therapists filed a Complaint which made its way to the DOL and resulted in a company-wide investigation. Based on this investigation, the employer was ordered to pay $382,890 in back wages to H-1B employees.

at the U.S. Depart- partnership grant proment of Education do gram. It is expected to fund approximately 30-40 simple math?

America has about 5.4 million open jobs today, with many new openings in information technology (IT) fields, including software development, network administration, and cybersecurity. These fields are projected to grow at a rate that is twothirds higher than the average for all jobs. The average salary in a job that requires IT skills is more than 50 percent higher than the average private -sector American job.

grants, with individual grant amounts ranging from $2-5 million. This grant program is designed to train individuals with the skills they need to connect them to well-paying, middle- and highskilled, and high-growth jobs across H-1B industries such as: IT, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, financial services, and broadband.

The closing date for receipt of applications under this Announcement is March 11, 2016. Applications must be reHelping more Americans ceived no later than train and connect to 4:00:00 p.m. EST. More these jobs is an econom- information on applying ic imperative for our for the H-1B TechHire continued innovation Partnership Grants is leadership. Today our IT available from this antraining pipeline is nouncement.

Limiting the DOL’s insignificantly underhttps:// vestigative powers to producing workers for community.lincs.ed.gov/ the complaint and the these good jobs. This bulletin/fundingspecific allegations is costing employers, opportunity-announcement contained therein poten- workers, and the U.S. -applications-h-1btially limits employer economy. For that realiability to a consider- son, the U.S. Department techhire-partnershipgrants able degree. of Labor’s Employment http://www.jdsupra.com/ and Training Administra- Editors Note: tion (ETA), has anlegalnews/8th-circuitOn the next page I will nounced the availability show how many computer denies-department-ofof approximately labor-33748/ jobs are created each $100,000,000 in grant year Why can’t our people funds for the TechHire Page Number: 6

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Keep America At Work 288 E. Kroll Harper, TX 78631 vbiersch@gmail.com (830) 998-3486

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