Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
The administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has the opportunity to take bold steps to enact executive orders and rescind the harmful actions taken by the Donald Trump administration against immigrant workers, according to Migration that Works.
The first 100 days of the incoming administration will come at a time of serious public health risks due to the COVID-19 pandemic and influenza season, as well as regulations that have been detrimental to migrant workers.
Migration that Works points out in the report called "Preventing Abuse of Internationally Recruited Workers," that each year there are between 700,000 and 900,000 immigrant workers who enter the U.S. on temporary work visas.
However, a large proportion are subject to a temporary work visa system rife with labour abuses, including fraud, discrimination and forced labour, and may even find themselves in difficult situations when they decide to file a complaint because their source of income depends on it.
Over the past five and a half years, more than 4,315 labor trafficking victims with temporary work visas have been reported to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH), although there could be many more.
So the protection of this vital workforce must be ensured by providing specific recommendations for administrative and legislative action, as well as an immediate rollback of the xenophobic, racist and anti-immigrant rules and policies implemented by the Trump administration.
Among some of these, Migration that Works recommends rescinding all executive orders suspending immigration or barring entry to workers from specific countries, as well as limitations placed on the Department of Labor's certifications of U and T visa applicants' cooperation with law enforcement.
Also, public charge rules and forms that impose a wealth test for immigrants and nonimmigrants, as well as the rule issued by the Department of Labor that freezes the wages of foreign farmworkers under the H2A visa program, should be rescinded.
Similarly, immigration raids on workplaces, social media data collection for immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants, and the issuance of Social Security "no match" letters to employers should be discouraged.
In addition, USCIS rules that temporarily grant employers more flexibility in hiring H-2A and H-2Bs to determine whether continued employment is warranted, and the Department of Labor's rule that increases prevailing wages to protect the current H-1B workforce and prevent misclassification, should be reviewed.
Finally, the Department of Agriculture's farm labor survey must be restored to establish H-2A25 wage rates, as well as Customs and Border Protection awards for in-house transferees with specialized skills.
