The Coronavirus has taken its toll on the health of our nation – and our economy.
Just last week, a record 3.2 million people filed for unemployment benefits as businesses struggled under the stay-at-home order issued by most state governments. No less than five of my techie friends got pink slips and had to turn in their laptops.
This development comes at a time of year when the federal government announces the latest round of 85,000 new foreign workers who score H-1B Visas from a lottery conducted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This is scheduled to happen on Wednesday, April 1st and its the most highly anticipated day on the calendar for the India-based IT outsourcing firms that have displaced Americans by the millions.
Each H1-B visa recipient gets to stay in the country for a term of three years – but this can be extended to an indefinite time period if they are awaiting approvals on a Green Card application. At least one news source says there are over 800,000 workers in this cue.
So, combined with new H-1Bs being awarded and the foreing workers waiting for Green Cards, that makes over 1 million foreign workers in our country doing jobs Americans can do.
In light of all the hardship American workers will have to endure over the coming months and years, we will be joining US Techworkers in writing members of Congress to suspend this year’s H-1B Visa lottery. It just doesn’t make any sense to be bringing in any more foreign workers when so many of our brothers and sisters are out of work at this time.
If you’ve lost your job – or you’ve seen any of your family or friends lose their jobs over the last week – I encourage you to join us in this letter-writing campaign. Besides, with this ongoing quarantine in place, it’s not as if you don’t have the time!
Unless we say something to our elected representatives, they won’t know the pain we are all feeling. And, unless we reach out to them, they won’t necessarily know the backlash they will face if they support the rights of foreign workers over those of American citizens. It’s crazy they don’t know what we are all going through, despite the stories in the mainstream media.
It was unfortunate that just last week that, one draft of the Coronavirus relief legislation considered by Congress included language that would have automatically renewed H-1B Visas for tens of thousands of foreign workers. Fortunately, after a letter-writing campaign led by legendary activists Steve Pushor, Roger Ross and Kevin Lynn, this was deleted from the final version of the bill.
It’s true. American workers face a bleak outlook. The country has never shut down like this before and there are likely thousand upon thousands of new job cuts coming. We ask you to join us in contacting our elected representatives in Washington, DC.
This link has all the contact info for your CT senators and congressmen.