CHANGING STATUS FROM TOURIST TO WORKING

Fifth of a series

ARE temporary foreign workers part of America's problem — or solution?

"Immigrants are invading America, poisoning the blood of the county, taking away jobs from Americans."

MAGA-infected Republican politicians parrot this mantra from former president Donald Trump.

Seen only from the number's perspective, Trump Republicans can justify the "invasion."

In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office projected that net immigration — arrivals minus departures — would equal about 1 million in 2023.

The actual number — NBC reported on April 12, 2024 — that net migration was more than triple that estimate: 3.3 million per CBO January 2024 update.

Yes, millions entered the US: thousands of employers desperately seeking workers welcome these immigrants to keep up with customer orders brought about by demographic changes and the pandemic.

The economy — and consumer spending — had roared back from the pandemic recession.

The NBC report further asserts that "the number of native-born Americans in their prime working years — ages 25 to 54 — was dropping because so many of them had aged out of that category and were nearing or entering retirement. This group's numbers have shrunk by 770,000 since February 2020, just before Covid-19 slammed the economy."

Immigrants last year accounted for a record 18.6 percent of the labor force, according to the Economic Policy Institute's analysis of government data.

Over the past four years, the number of prime-age workers who either have a job or are looking for one has surged by 2.8 million. And nearly all those new labor force entrants — 2.7 million, or 96 percent of them — were born outside the United States. Immigrants last year accounted for a record 18.6 percent of the labor force, according to the Economic Policy Institute's analysis of government data.

States assume immigration functions

The knee-jerk reaction of Republican governors? Move migrants across borders.

Abbot and Costello er ... De Santis led several states to send migrants away using taxpayer dollars. Texas "deported" 66,000 migrants and asylum seekers to states that Abbot claims are migrant sanctuaries, spending $86.1 million between April 2022 and October 2023 on these efforts — roughly $1,650 per person, according to data obtained by Axios through the Texas Public Information Act.

Not to be outdone, Florida provided a $12 million budget for migrant transportation.

Right move, wrong destinations

Removing migrants from their states was a logical move for Texas and Florida. But they sent able-bodied workers to the wrong states.

South Dakota's population and labor force are aging and hardly growing. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that "just under 67 percent of the population is in the workforce, 2 percentage points less than a decade ago."

Then there is Virginia.

In 2022 the state had 33,000 job openings but received barely 4,084 temporary foreign workers and their families in that fiscal year. Employers in the Dakotas would have welcomed buses full of potential workers.

Federal govt response to states' labor problems

Recognizing the need of employers in various states, the USCIS and the Department of Labor (DOL) made available an additional 64,718 temporary nonagricultural workers for fiscal year 2024 on top of the 66,000 annual cap for H-2B workers.

The urgent cry for help on Nov. 16, 2023 came from American businesses in industries such as hospitality and tourism, landscaping, seafood processing, and more turn to seasonal and other temporary workers.

The temporary labor shortage was partially solved in two months' time. On Jan. 9, 2024, USCIS announced it had received enough petitions to reach the additional 20,716 H-2B visas made available for returning workers for the first half of FY 2024, with start dates on or before March 31, 2024.

Clearly, temporary foreign workers are in the solution column.

Temporary foreign worker program

In 2022, DHS reported 3,176,965 foreign workers and families admitted as temporary workers. Since 2013, the numbers have hovered between 3 to 4 million, confirming the "permanent" need for temporary labor before, during and after the pandemic.

Migration Policy Institute's March 2020 report shows that "6 million immigrant workers are at the frontlines of keeping US residents healthy and fed during the Covid-19 pandemic. While the foreign-born represented 17 percent of the 156 million civilians working in 2018, they account for larger shares in coronavirus-response frontline occupations: 29 percent of all physicians and 38 percent of home health aides, for example. They also represent significant shares of workers cleaning hospital rooms, staffing grocery stores, and producing food."

From 2019 to 2022, temporary workers have staffed not only America's frontlines but also backwater areas in food production, distribution and preparation: 4,106,324 in 2019; 2,572,815 in 2020; and 1,843,944 in 2021, resuming its upward trend in 2022 to 3,176,965. (DHS Yearbook of Statistics).

Philippine share of H-2Bs

For the three-year period before and immediately after the pandemic, Filipinos were issued temporary work visas: 4,616 in 2019; 6,500 in 2020; and 3,873 in 2021.

In October 2023, at the start of fiscal year 2024, the US Embassy issued 346 H-2B visas to Filipino applicants: 275 in November; 98 in December; 272 in January 2024; 257 in February; and 184 in March.

The number of visas in the other temporary work visas was higher in the H-1B and trainees and lower in the H-2A category.

A welcome development is evident outside the mainland. The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) sowed 585 approved job orders. A separate search for job orders in the United States returned 788 records.

Currently, Congress has set the H-2B cap at 66,000 distributed as follows: 33,000 to begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year (October 1-March 31) and 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year (April 1- September 30).

The USCIS explains that "any unused numbers from the first half of the fiscal year will be available for employers seeking to hire H-2B workers during the second half of the fiscal year. However, unused H-2B numbers from one fiscal year do not carry over into the next."

How can you get your H-2B visa for the next round?

The answer next week.

2024-05-26T17:13:06Z dg43tfdfdgfd