Washington journal continues. Host ted hesson is with labor reporter for that organization. We are talking about temporary visas and a review of that program. Can you tell us what a temporary visa is . Guest it gives a Foreign Worker permission to come to the u. S. Or a Company Permission to bring that Foreign Worker to the u. S. For a period of time. Geared towardss high skilled workers, people stem fields,en in science, technology, engineering, and math. Host how many of those people can come in yearly . Guest in this category, it is 85,000 the year, with 65,000 of what they call general visas and 20,000 reserved for people with masters degrees. Host walk through the process of how to get a visa. Need to company will petition on behalf of that worker. In the case of the h1b, they have to submit an application and explains why they need to bring this worker abroad and also give documentation that they have actually sought a u. S. Worker v4 they go and look for a temporary worker from overseas. Host after that process, is it a lottery system . 85,000 visas, and typically there has been much more desire and demand for this visas than that limit. So the actually go to a lottery once they go over the cap, and it is a random lottery. So all the companies that have some of the petitions, those will be put into the lottery, and they will choose 85,000 of those. Tot those will be assigned companies, and they will come in and start working. How long do they visas last . Guest these will last for three years ago be renewed for another three years. People cases, for adjusting to green cards, they can be extended a little bit more. Talking about the h1b visa program, Foreign Workers who come in. , republican. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. If you are an age would be visa holder, 2027488003. This was a topic of discussion this week. Out anthe president put executive order saying he wanted to review all visa programs and have his federal agencies look to make sure they are not discriminating against u. S. Workers and displacing them. With the h1b, he wants to look more closely at that lottery here at the idea is that maybe it should not be random. Maybe it should be the jobs paying the most are the positions needed the most are the ones the visas are going to. It is something they will it evaluate right now, and you could see new regulations and world making from the different agencies to address these. Host what spurred this for you . Guest there were high profile cases of abuses in the system. There was one involving disney i. T. Workers. They were following the rules of the program, but they were still displacing u. S. Workers by taking fulltime positions and turning them into contract jobs in bringing and temporary workers from abroad to take those at a cheaper price. Host so people coming in to take these jobs, is there a case to be made that there are enough americans to do those jobs . Guest from the labor sector, they will say, yes, at least u. S. Workers should have the first crack at those jobs. From businesses, a lot of them will say they need talent from abroad, specifically the tech sector. They have made the case for bringing in Foreign Workers. Host our first call is from daniel, tacoma park, maryland, democrat. Go ahead. Caller when i was in california, one of the two main it was, doy one, Foreign Workers get paid less than americans . And did you hear about the report that did a survey of all that found workers 93 of them were white and asian . So i do not think they are really doing a good job hiring a large group of people. They are not hiring black people or people from india or people from various parts of the world. I think they are specifically targeting certain foreigners. It is not fair. Guest i will answer the first part when you said workers coming in and making more money than u. S. Workers it depends on the position. If you do a google search, you will see that Different Companies are offering different salaries. For example, u. S. Tech companies, like facebook, tend salariesering higher for their h1b visa holders than some indiabased companies that are bringing in workers on a temporary basis. Host michelle and minneapolis, go ahead, republican line. Caller yes, i think you just kind of hit the topic i was going to talk about. You have these outside contractors bringing in a lot of folks from india, and they can go to the Large Companies and say, hey, we can give you this i. T. Person for 20,000 a year or less. I think we need to figure out a way to stop giving this preferences to those specific companies. Guest the way the system works is, actually, the employers need to pay what they call a prevailing wage, which is an average of wages for the location and the occupation in question. The issue is the prevailing wage is split into four levels, one being the lowest tier and four being the highest. So the employer is able to define the occupation and choose the level. Occupations, like a computer program, you are actually paying below the average wage because you are paying with a call a level one wage instead of a level four wage, when the average is in the middle. Host there is an oped today in the usa today by a ceo. It says the h1b visa was designed to attract world talent and critics have complained the program is abused by Global Outsourcing firms. Can you expand on that . Guest that is the divide we have seen. Different kinds of committees use the visa. Some use outsourcing here there are other companies, like facebook, google, and apple who are bringing in i. T. Workers and computer programmers from abroad to work here in the u. S. You have seen a line drawn, and i think there is less tolerance for Companies Using this for outsourcing. Host is the outsourcing sort of a gobetween . Guest when you have companies, whether they are based in the u. S. Or abroad, their primary job is to outsource i. T. Services, for example, and they are using this visa to facilitate that you read to facilitate that. Host mark from pennsylvania, independent line. Caller one of these programs started during the clinton indian. Ration with an it was a sweetheart deal and had to do at the clinton foundation. They contributed to the clinton foundation, and they got the sweetheart deal for the indians to come over. Now it is a superhighway for them to come over. Many of them are not vetted to do the jobs. There are also subcontractors to the government. Tendsre taking and that of these people and making they are taking advantage of these people and making money on the spread. The employee agency, temp agency, whatever, they are making money, and their government contractors. We are being ripped off, and we do not need this. We have enough workers here. I am totally against this. Thank you. Guest i can test the idea that it is a superhighway to bring workers to the u. S. I contest the idea that it is a superhighway. This is a relatively small amount of visas, especially when you distribute them across companies. That said, are there potentially abuses and areas for reform . I think the Trump Administration will look further into that. Haveve them number the number always been consistent over the years . Guest it has been pretty consistent. At any given time though, it is closer to half a million visas. They are three years long and can be extended for three years. In some cases, even longer. So there is a bigger universe of people at any given time working on it h1b visa. Host as far as vetting is concerned, is part of that security vetting . Guest actually, i am not clear on that. Securitythe same component that would go into issuing any visa in the u. S. , but i am not certain there is a unique component for an h1b. Host when in the u. S. , do they have to report to someone . Guest i believe it is the same requirement for any visa in the u. S. You have to renew it when the time comes up. You are employed at a certain workplace or do you stay employed there to maintain that. Host elaine is in north carolina, democrat. Caller good morning. My question is, i understand there is more than one kind of Foreign Worker visa, and i also understand that trumps executive order does not affect his Foreign Workers that he hires at maralago. I would like to comment on that, why trump still benefits and other employers would not then if it from Foreign Workers . Although i do believe we should be hiring american workers. A good question. This order he mention earlier this week is looking at all visa programs, but he did specifically call out this h1b visa for highly skilled workers. 2b visaid, there is an h that has been used by tropbranded trumpbranded visas and all over the country. I think that is another area were some critics would like to see reform, as well. A multitude of employmentbased visas, and umpbranded companies have used them. Host i read that Melania Trump even had a visa. And are these in wide scope of fields . Guest it tends to be special ed fields, but it also does include models, which is a unique structure of this visa. Host a call from virginia, independent line. Caller thank you. Title is Foreign Worker, but there ares expire and kids and young people showing up all over the country. Permission, one has to go to a jewelry making school in california but they show up to virginia or somewhere else areorder some visas that specifically limited to several states, arizona, texas bank order crossing, and then they are showing up in new york and all over. So keeping track of them once they get these visas and come in here, and then if they are expired visas, is anyone following those people . Guest i will not be able to answer all the things you are talking about. As far as expired visas, there is a degree of tracking on it. The obamaading, under administration, Something Like 400,000 deportations every year, and those have been intensified under trump. It is something the administration will look at, people who are here without legal status, regardless on whether it is an employmentbased visa. Host a question on twitter about bringing family members with them. Guest under the obama administration, they put a regulation in place to allow spaces spouses of h1b visa holders to apply for work authorization. That is something that can be reviewed. Host there are reports of the visa applications have already seen a little bit of a decline. Guest that is right or this year, for the first time in five years, the h1b visas dipped and fewer committees applied. There was still a lot, a big surplus of applications, 199,000 applications for 85,000 slots. Comparedopped by 16 with last year, so pretty substantial. Host why is that . Guest it is hard to say without looking at who applied, but it could be a nervousness that some of the applications that were submitted in years past might not pass muster under the Trump Administration. It could also be a reflection of economic conditions. You would expect that there would be a strong interest the way the economy is going right now though. Company and saw the strap happening and so what took place in the executive order from this administration, what is going through my mind as for as my workforce . Guest i am hearing from the Legacy Tech Companies that they are prepared for this. As you would imagine, they had hr teams looking at the specifics of the visa program at any given time, and they are prepared for what kind of regulatory changes might come. They want access to the workforces, and they will find ways to do that. Host companies have to report that they at least made an american. Hire an how do they verify that . Guest from what i understand, it has to do with putting an ad in a newspaper. That is one area with a have looked at possible reform. Different ways and at modern era of advertising jobs and promoting that. Host ted hesson joining as to talk about the review of this temporary visa program. Robert, little rock, arkansas, republican line. At the beginning, i thought you said Big Companies fired or got rid of all americans and hired contract labor, which i have seen with spanish americans i dont know do they get 1099s for federal tax . Guest we are talking about these h1b visas for specialized workers typically, and the cases i mentioned, high profile, utilitiesdisney, company in california, and the university of california San Francisco school, they involved contracting cases were fulltime staffers were let go and required to train their h1b counterparts in the process. I do not know if that answers your question, but i wanted to clarify. Host what are the Top Countries were these visa holders are coming from . Guest 70 or so our folks coming from india, and another 12 are coming from china in recent years. From melissa joints us staten island, new york, independent line. Caller you brought up the thing about the family. I have been in the Insurance Industry for over 30 years, and i know some one who benefited from it. But there were some abuses to the system that i thought could be we had somebody come over really pretty much for the language, speaking three different linkages from eastern europe, speaking three different languages, but she had no college degree. So the basic soft skills to get in a Corporate Culture environment, you know, like you come back from lunch and you say who you are, you know, just a lot of basic common sense things we take for granted. Really quick, what it ended up being is that she brought her husband over and then brought her mother over and then she brought her motherinlaw over, and they all had health issues. Motherinlaw is in the country and right away needed openheart surgery and got it on the medicare system. The father needed knee surgery. There were abuses. With that in mind, she should have had some type of college, either enrolled in college or go for a degree or Something Like that. Separately, if you had these young people going into the aca, the health care, able to buy their health care, say this person could host we got the point and will let our guest respond. Guest as far as a college degree, there is a bill in congress right now with bipartisan support from two senators, and it would give preference to graduates of u. S. Colleges in this visa program. So if you come here and attend a fouryear university, specifically if you study the stem field, you would have a preference to be at the top of the list for a visa like this. Host litchfield, new hampshire, republican line. Ray, good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. You briefly touched about a topic i want to talk about, and that is how Companies Bring people over to take american jobs, but the americans actually have to train the individual that is going to be taking their job. Onterday i saw on cbs that 60 minutes this sunday, they will have a segment on this. They are showing a lot of people that are in that situation saying that if they refuse to train the people or not to the companys satisfaction, they will not get their severance package. We have been seeing this for a couple years now with disney doing this, toys r us doing this, and other companies. How can they get an h1b visa to bring somebody over who is not going to stay here and just take this job and move it to india . Pointingank you for that out. I believe in these instances, these are fulltime positions that companies are saying are being eliminated and then replaced with outsourced positions or contracted positions. So i think that is kind of the legal loophole around that. Website, visapro, says that three things have to be presented to qualify. A u. S. Bachelors degree or equivalent, license to practice in the u. S. , state licensing, and a u. S. Employer has to sponsor the h1b visa. They cannot be selfemployed. Guest that is right. In the first point of having a degree or some kind of professional experience that substitutes for that, some will like to see that changed so that the degree is mandatory. This bipartisan bill would give a preference to graduates of u. S. Universities, so it is somebody who is already here and could more easily transition into the workforce. Dalton,rry from georgia, on our line for democrats. Caller it is my understanding that President Trump ran a modeling agency, and didnt you say that the h1b visas, they had to be specialized workers . Would these workers be considered specialized . Guest that is one of the odd things about this visa. In general, it is specialized workers, specialty occupations. It also includes models, and it is used by the modeling industry. So it is kind of a strange partnership. Even trumpbranded businesses have used these to bring in models in the past. 2bst you mentioned an h visa. What is the scope . Guest there are lots of types. We have touched on two, the one for highly skilled workers and the other one for Seasonal Workers who come to the u. S. In areas like landscaping or amusement parks. In ththe seafood industry coulde one. Host as was the total amount yearly, what is that number . Aest you are talking about million people, i believe, coming into the u. S. Each year to year but i do not want to be quoted on the exact number. Or h1b, it is about 85,000 so, with a total universe of 460,000 people. Host independent line, david. People,hi, this 85,000 he does not affect the u. S. Market very much. India,ople coming from it is possible to make some trade deal, like between the canada and the u. S. In the market, it is mostly with the u. S. Jobs going offshore. I know the Big Companies coming outsourced. And 70 here. Ment stays project develop people working in india, from india. There is the internet and all that stuff that is working very good there. That is the problem. Affect the u. S. Market more than this 85,000. Guest i mean, there are certainly businesses that will make the case that this visa is necessary. It is possible that in the process of reform, there could even be an expansion of the number of h1b visas available here at a think the real problem is the outsourcing aspect of it. I think of that was eliminated or reduced, there might be more of an openness to expanding the number of these visas each year. Host the