Apparently, I am going to have to learn a bit more about H-1B visas. They are the subject of a new Indian WTO complaint against the U.S., which I may have something to say about next week. And they came up in last night's Republican presidential debate:
TAPPER: Let's talk more about how American jobs are impacted by foreign workers. Let's go to Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times. Stephen.
DINAN: Senator Rubio in late 2014, Disney laid off 250 tech workers in Orlando, replacing many of them with foreign workers. Some of the Americans even had to train their own replacements. You support increasing the H-1B visa program that made it possible to bring in these foreign workers. Doesn't this program take jobs away from Americans?
RUBIO: If it's being abused the way Disney did. Understand that program, it is illegal now under that program to use it to replace American workers. Under that program, you have to prove not only that you're not replacing Americans, but that you've tried to hire Americans. And if a company is caught abusing that process, they should never be allowed to use it again.
The second problem with the current structure of the program that people perhaps don't understand is a lot of these companies are not directly hiring employees from abroad. They are hiring a consulting company like Tata, for example, out of India. That company then hoards up all of these visas. They hire workers. You hire -- Disney or some other company hires this company.
What they're basically doing is they are insourcing and outsourcing. They are bringing in workers from abroad that are not direct employees of a Disney or someone else, they're employees of this consulting business. And what I argue is that no consulting business such as that should be allowed to hoard up all of these visas, that the visas should only be available for companies to use to directly hire workers and that we should be stricter in how he enforce it.
It is illegal now, it is a violation of the law now to use that program to replace Americans. And if a company is caught doing that, whether it be Disney or anyone else, they should be barred from using the program in the future.
DINAN: Senator Rubio, real quick follow-up on this.
(APPLAUSE)
You've -- in the -- in the context of illegal immigration, you've called for basically putting off any legalization process until we get the border secured.
RUBIO: Correct.
DINAN: Why not call for a pause on H1Bs until those abuses you've talked about are solved.
RUBIO: Well first, I think -- well, I'd be open to it if it takes a pause. But I don't think it takes a pause to enforce the law. What they are doing is they are in fact using that program to replace an American.
If there's an American working at Disney and they bring someone from another country using H1B to replace their direct job, that's in violation of the law. And what I'm explaining to you is, what they are doing now is they are not -- what they are doing is they are eliminating the job.
They are outsourcing the entire tech division to a consulting company. They are making the argument that we didn't replace you. We just replaced the whole unit by hiring a company to do it instead. And that company that they're hiring is bringing their workers from abroad. It's a loophole they've figured out that we need to close so they can no longer continue to do it that way.
I don't think I fully understand the role of companies like Tata, but from what I see in this old post, these companies may play an important part in one of the WTO claims.
The rhetoric on trade in this year's Presidential campaign generally ranges from really scary to moderately bad, with occasional bright spots about how tariffs are actually a tax on consumers. The timing of this Indian complaint worries me, because there is an opportunity for someone to demonize U.S. involvement in the WTO.
