Too many corporations made their bed with the republican President Donald Trump and the GOP lawmakers in the US Congress by backing them with millions of dollars in dark monies in Super Pac funds designed to favor certain policies and the republicans that support them. It can be said that the Koch brothers got their monies worth with the 2017 GOP tax cuts bill even if it adds at least $1 trillion dollars to the US deficit over 10 years, with the reduction in government regulatory constraints and the virtual complete denial of the reality of the inevitable negative consequences of “climate change.”

Those business executives who look upon the poor as parasites, the welfare queens just waiting around for the meager government handouts at the expense of these same companies’ profits, are not unhappy to see safety net programs for the poor cut back. They do not have a problem with the US being top rated among developed rich countries for income inequality.

 

But their stooge in the White House is also responsible for some policies that are counter productive to the success of US businesses like the cut-backs on legal immigration. The tariffs being implemented against our neighbors and allies is another issue causing executives, major incidents of heartburn.

The president’s anti-immigration stance designed to cater to his base of voters is now harming these same businesses and many of them form the donor class.

See: President Hiring Mostly Foreigners To Staff Mar-A-Lago / Gronda Morin

Here is the rest of the story….

On September 2, 2018, Nelson D. Schwartz and Steve Lohr of the New York Times penned the following report, “Companies Say Trump Is Hurting Business by Limiting Legal Immigration”

Excerpts:

“The Trump administration is using the country’s vast and nearly opaque immigration bureaucracy to constrict the flow of foreign workers into the United States by throwing up new roadblocks to limit legal arrivals.”

“The government is denying more work visas, asking applicants to provide additional information and delaying approvals more frequently than just a year earlier. Hospitals, hotels, technology companies and other businesses say they are now struggling to fill jobs with the foreign workers they need.”

With foreign hires missing, the employees who remain are being forced to pick up the slack. Seasonal industries like hotels and landscaping are having to turn down customers or provide fewer services. Corporate executives worry about the long-term impact of losing talented engineers and programmers to countries like Canada that are laying out the welcome mat for skilled foreigners.

At Northwell Health’s pathology lab on Long Island, a new doctor’s cubicle stands empty, her computer and microscope untouched. Other residents started on July 1, but she is stuck in India’s Punjab State, held up by unexplained delays in her visa.”

“There have been delays in processing that we have not felt before,” said Dr. Andrew C. Yacht, chief academic officer at Northwell, which includes Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan and North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.”

“In April 2017, President Trump signed a “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing government officials to “rigorously enforce” immigration laws. The order did not get the kind of attention that followed the administration’s decision to separate families at the Mexican border this summer.”

“A few months later, the president endorsed legislation that would cut legal immigration by half. The bill was introduced by two Republican senators, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia. But Republican leaders in Congress have not advanced it.”

“Some lawmakers say Mr. Trump is using administrative means to reshape immigration policy because those changes have stalled on Capitol Hill.”

“If they want to have a proposal on immigration, they should send it to Congress,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Silicon Valley. “The administration should engage in that conversation. To unilaterally and without any accountability change what Congress has authorized is not democratic.”

“In practice, businesses say the increased red tape has made it harder to secure employment-based visas. That has added to the difficulty of finding qualified workers with the unemployment rate falling to 3.9 percent.

“A recent analysis of government data by the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research group, found that the denial rate for H-1B visa petitions for skilled foreign workers had increased 41 percent in the last three months of the 2017 fiscal year, compared with the third quarter. Government requests for additional information for applications doubled in the fourth quarter, a few months after Mr. Trump issued his order.”

“Experts say a sustained reduction in immigration could dampen growth over time as more baby boomers retire, leaving big gaps in the job market.”

“That goes for high-skilled immigrants and low-skilled workers, said Francine D. Blau, an economist at Cornell. The latter will be vital in fields like elder care and child care, as well as construction and cleaning.”

“A lot of our labor-force growth comes from immigrants and their children,” Ms. Blau said. “Without them, we’d suffer the problems associated with countries with an aging population, like Japan.”

“The Business Roundtable, a group of corporate leaders, recently challenged the Trump administration over changes that it says threaten the livelihoods of thousands of skilled foreign workers, and economic growth and competitiveness.”

“In a statement, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said the administration was “relentlessly pursuing necessary immigration reforms that move toward a merit-based system.” It added that all petitions and applications were handled “fairly, efficiently, and effectively on a case-by-case basis.”

“The H-1B program, which was created to bring in foreigners with skills that business leaders argued would strengthen the economy, has long been a target for some politicians. The visa program has been criticized because corporations have exploited it to replace American workers.”

“Still, many economists say H-1B holders are valuable. Immigrants file patents at twice the rate of native-born Americans and start about 25 percent of high-tech companies in the United States.”

“There’s absolutely no research that supports the idea that cutting legal immigration is good for the economy,” said Ethan Lewis, a Dartmouth economist.”

“Hospitals in particular argue that they need foreign doctors who are more willing than native-born Americans to take jobs in less glamorous and lower-paying fields, like internal and family medicine. Of Northwell’s 1,826 resident doctors, 165 came in under H1-B or J-1 student visas.”

Nearly one-third of pathology residents come from other countries, according to the National Resident Matching Program. But the number of overseas applicants in all specialties has dropped for two years in a row.

“The administration’s policies are having a chilling effect on the interest of international medical graduates coming to the United States to train,” said Mona M. Signer, chief executive of the matching program.

“The missing Indian pathologist’s workload at Northwell has been spread among 11 residents, lengthening the time they are on call.”

“Our nation’s ability to care for patients is dependent on international medical graduates,” Dr. Yacht said.”

“The effect of lower-skilled immigrants is more debatable. George J. Borjas, a Harvard economist, has found that an influx of such workers reduced the incomes of people without a high school degree between 3 and 5 percent.”

“Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California, Davis, agrees that individual workers can be hurt by competition from lower-paid foreigners. But he said the overall effect on wages was modest. Immigration also tends to bolster the incomes of college-educated Americans.”

“Mr. Peri points to what happened when the government deported between 400,000 and 500,000 Mexicans between 1929 and 1934, most of whom worked in agriculture and construction. With fewer people to work the fields, farm owners and agricultural businesses cut administrative, sales and clerical jobs.”

“Out of eight or 10 positions held by Mexicans, maybe one or two were taken by Americans,” Mr. Peri said. “The rest disappeared.”

Link to article: Companies Say Trump Is Hurting Business by Limiting Legal Immigration