Speaker 1: Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order that he said
Speaker 1: was meant to protect American workers. I will be signing
Speaker 1: a buy American and Higher American executive order. You haven't
Speaker 1: heard about that in a long time in this country.
Speaker 1: With this action, we are sending a powerful signal to
Speaker 1: the world. We're going to defend our workers, protect our jobs,
Speaker 1: and finally put America first. The order takes him at
Speaker 1: two specific areas, federal government requirements to purchase American goods
Speaker 1: and services, which the order aims to enforce, and the
Speaker 1: H one B VISA Program for Temporary employment of foreign
Speaker 1: workers with highly specialized knowledge, a visa program that's relied
Speaker 1: on by Silicon Valley tech companies and technology outsourcing firms.
Speaker 1: The President says the order is meant to end abuses
Speaker 1: of the VISA program that allow companies to replace American
Speaker 1: workers with foreign workers for less pay. Here to talk
Speaker 1: with us about the possible impact of President Trump's executive
Speaker 1: order are David beerd immigration policy analyst at the Cato
Speaker 1: Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, and Angelo Paparelli,
Speaker 1: a partner at Sayforth Shaw Angelo. What reforms do we
Speaker 1: know that from this order that there the Trump administration
Speaker 1: is going to undertake to change the visa program. Well,
Speaker 1: the the order really it does not involve any immediate
Speaker 1: action or any media deadline, and it appears that these
Speaker 1: are aspirational instructions rather than hardened fast changes. There are
Speaker 1: two sets of instructions in the order. One deals with
Speaker 1: UH suggesting new UH rules and policy guidance that would
Speaker 1: supersede or revise previous rules and guidance. Well, UH, that
Speaker 1: triggers a very complicated, time consumed process under the Administrative
Speaker 1: Procedure Act, where rules are proposed and the Office of
Speaker 1: Management and Budget UH screens the rule, circulates copies to
Speaker 1: multiple federal agencies and departments, and then gets feedback while
Speaker 1: the while the members of the public and the stakeholder
Speaker 1: community have an opportunity to talk about it. There's no
Speaker 1: deadline set for this, and I think that's wise since
Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to predict how long that will go.
Speaker 1: But the second one is interesting because it introduces a
Speaker 1: concept that we should accord these visas to individuals who
Speaker 1: are among the highest paid and the most skilled in
Speaker 1: in the particular field. UH. That is not allowed in
Speaker 1: the law at present. UH, and the Congress would have
Speaker 1: to act to bring that about. It would also involve
Speaker 1: a rather gargantuan task, much harder than a lottery. In
Speaker 1: a lottery, it's just a random draw. But in trying
Speaker 1: to filter through UH. The this time, it was about
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty three thousand H petitions submitted for
Speaker 1: eighty five thousand lucky UH recipients who are selected to
Speaker 1: try to filter through two hundred and thirty thousand, divided
Speaker 1: by industry and occupation, and then come up with a
Speaker 1: method of determining a comparison as to which are the
Speaker 1: most highest skilled and highest paid. That that's a not
Speaker 1: an easy task for an agency not known to be nimble.
Speaker 1: David Trump said the visa program has driven down wages
Speaker 1: for Americans. Is that true when only eighty five thousand,
Speaker 1: h one B visas are available each year? Well, no,
Speaker 1: it's not true. UM. If you look at the industry
Speaker 1: over all, what you see is that these foreign immigrant
Speaker 1: workers who come in end up taking certain types of jobs,
Speaker 1: and UH native born workers have responded to that by
Speaker 1: moving into managerial positions and moving up the pay scale.
Speaker 1: And so there has been a shifting in the industry
Speaker 1: over the past decade or so. But you're not seeing
Speaker 1: this kind of horror stories of displacement and unemployment and
Speaker 1: declining wages. In fact, h wages in the largest fields
Speaker 1: UM that H one vs go to, the most common
Speaker 1: H one B occupations have actually increased. Well. Uh, wages
Speaker 1: in other sectors of the economy have gone down. And
Speaker 1: so it's really a very selective reading of the information
Speaker 1: that he has received, uh, in order to come to
Speaker 1: this conclusion. And if you actually look at when these
Speaker 1: H one b s are coming and when companies are
Speaker 1: demanding H one bees, it's overwhelmingly at times when the
Speaker 1: unemployment rate in these industries, these these tech computer and
Speaker 1: mathematics jobs are very the unemployment rate is very very low,
Speaker 1: and and it's very very low right now. And so
Speaker 1: it's just not true that you're seeing this kind of
Speaker 1: displacement and replacement um overall in the industry. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: there have been a few cases, but uh, not the
Speaker 1: general trend that he's trying to create. Angelo. We have
Speaker 1: about thirty seconds. But is there a feeling in the
Speaker 1: industries that use these visas that there's a need to
Speaker 1: change the program. Well, there's a tremendous need to eliminate
Speaker 1: the cap which is artificial and which not has not
Speaker 1: changed meaningfully since Uh. The number of workers where positions
Speaker 1: are in short supply, UM, excuse me, where workers are
Speaker 1: in short supply in terms of the positions is very disproportionate. UH. Recently,
Speaker 1: the San Diego Union Tribune said that, UM, there are
Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollar jobs available that go begging for applicants,
Speaker 1: UH in cybersecurity, and UH that uh these are are
Speaker 1: our jobs that are Angela. Let me ask you to
Speaker 1: hold that the President Trump yesterday signed an executive order
Speaker 1: that requires the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the
Speaker 1: Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Homeland Security to
Speaker 1: suggest reforms to help ensure that H one B visas,
Speaker 1: which are for foreign workers with highly specialized knowledge, are
Speaker 1: only awarded to the most highly skilled or highest paid workers.
Speaker 1: The President says that this the changing the H one
Speaker 1: B visa program would protect American workers and end abuses
Speaker 1: in the program. We are talking about the President's order
Speaker 1: with David Beer, an immigration policy analysts at the Cato Institute,
Speaker 1: and Angelo Paparelli, a partner at say Fur Show. Angelo,
Speaker 1: we were talking about, um, what actually is needed to
Speaker 1: reform the program, And you suggested lifting the the number,
Speaker 1: lifting the cap and having a higher number of visas
Speaker 1: would actually be a good way to reform the program.
Speaker 1: But it seems unlikely that that's what President Trump is
Speaker 1: aiming for here, right, And so is this order really
Speaker 1: about sort of kind of making a more rational system
Speaker 1: or is it really about restricting immigration? Well, Uh, we
Speaker 1: have to take it in context. Previously, in meeting with
Speaker 1: leaders from Silicon Valley, Uh, he seemed to be open
Speaker 1: to their concerns as well. Uh, We've had higher numbers
Speaker 1: in the past. Uh, and usually it was a trade
Speaker 1: off stricter regulation for higher numbers, and I think that
Speaker 1: would be the way to go. At one point we
Speaker 1: had a hundred ninety thousand and up to more than
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand numbers as as opposed to what we
Speaker 1: have now eight thousand and So, David, will Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: be benefiting from this or is this purely a lottery
Speaker 1: system so you don't see who benefits? Well, Look, the
Speaker 1: lottery is bad for many of the big tech companies
Speaker 1: like Google and Microsoft, who actually pay their workers far
Speaker 1: more than they're required to under the law, and what
Speaker 1: ends up happening is that in the lottery system you
Speaker 1: have these I T staffing companies that submit thousands upon
Speaker 1: thousands of applications, and so then they win the lottery
Speaker 1: because they have the most raffle tickets, not because they
Speaker 1: have the greatest need or are going to pay the worker.
Speaker 1: They're they're going to bring over the most money. And
Speaker 1: so there are companies who would actually benefit um from
Speaker 1: you know, raising the minimum wage for H one B
Speaker 1: or that type of thing, but all of those types
Speaker 1: of regulations are really unnecessary. What we have in the
Speaker 1: H one B market is this uh sort of fraudulent
Speaker 1: government created problem, which is that the workers are stuck
Speaker 1: with a single employer. If the worker can leave his
Speaker 1: employer at any time and go get paid, uh for
Speaker 1: you know, forty dollars more at another tech company, then
Speaker 1: he'll do that if he has access to the market.
Speaker 1: The only way a company can get away with paying
Speaker 1: below market wages is if the worker doesn't have access
Speaker 1: to the market. And so the real reform that that
Speaker 1: President Trump could actually do here is make it easy
Speaker 1: for workers to leave an employer that underpays them. Angelo
Speaker 1: Given that so many of these visas are given to
Speaker 1: workers who end up at companies that are really outsourcing firms.
Speaker 1: They they do contracting work for other companies in technology
Speaker 1: and fields like that, UM, and that. You know, that's
Speaker 1: why the Silicon Valley companies aren't getting all of the visas.
Speaker 1: Is it actually a good thing to sort of figure
Speaker 1: out a way to restrict their ability to get these
Speaker 1: visas those companies, well, I take issue with what David
Speaker 1: said calling them staffing companies. These are really business process
Speaker 1: and I t consulting firms that introduce much needed innovations
Speaker 1: in the way American businesses operate and make them more
Speaker 1: globally competitive. I think a promising bill would be to
Speaker 1: start with what Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: has proposed, which would allocate a certain number of the visas.
Speaker 1: If we have to stay with a cap too smaller
Speaker 1: employers that will not be filing many many. But I
Speaker 1: think it's misleading, uh, to to point the blame at
Speaker 1: consulting firms. They're not really staff augmentation firms. Uh. They're
Speaker 1: much more sophisticated than that. And when Americans want to
Speaker 1: say we've had enough technology, then I think, uh, we
Speaker 1: can perhaps reduce the H one B, but no one
Speaker 1: has an appetite for that. Uh do you want to
Speaker 1: give us a thirty second response to that? David? You know,
Speaker 1: I think we're just talking about semantics. I don't disagree
Speaker 1: with anything that Angela just said. UM. Ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: these companies provide a valuable um, you know, asset to
Speaker 1: the firms that are that they are supporting, and so
Speaker 1: there's no reason to prevent them from UM accessing the
Speaker 1: H one B. We need more H one b s.
Speaker 1: But my point was that some of these large companies
Speaker 1: who pay workers more would ultimately benefit. Uh if the
Speaker 1: you know, the minimum wage was raised or other things
Speaker 1: were done to restrict access to the H one bree Well,
Speaker 1: we're out of time now, so our thanks to David
Speaker 1: Beer of the Cato Institute and Angela Paparelli, a partner
Speaker 1: at Safe Firth sherff Ford, talking about immigration policy and
Speaker 1: the President's order on UM on the H one B
Speaker 1: visa program, which was issued yesterday