“Apple’s top executive asked President Donald Trump to show more compassion in his immigration policy and reassure immigrant workers in the technology community that they are welcome in the U.S.,” Will Racke reports for The Daily Caller. “Tim Cook, visiting the White House Monday along with fellow Silicon Valley power players, told Trump that the technology sector is “nervous” about the administration’s tough stance on immigration enforcement, CNBC reported.”
“Cook reportedly brought up the administration’s proposed travel ban, which he said could affect the families of some Apple employees, and the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the temporary amnesty for the children of illegal immigrants that Trump promised to cancel but has thus far kept in place,” Racke reports. “Between scheduled discussions over cloud computing and procurement systems, Cook implored Trump to soften his rhetoric on immigration issues.”
Racke reports, “[Cook] said technology employees need a ‘clear signal’ that they won’t be targeted by the administration’s immigration policies, New York Times White House Correspondent Maggie Haberman reported late Monday night”
NEWS – Tim Cook told POTUS that the administration needed to show more heart on immigration issues, mentioned DACA, at tech CEO meeting 1/
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 20, 2017
2/ Cook said tech employees are nervous and while they don't think the administration's intent is to make them feel targeted, they need …
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 20, 2017
3/ a clear signal. POTUS replied that what's needed is "comprehensive" immigration reform. No comment from Apple or White House so far.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 20, 2017
Cook “has also publicly supported the continuation of the DACA, which Trump has maintained despite repeated promises to rescind program,” Racke reports. “Technology industry executives are also concerned with the future of the H-1B visa program, which allows American companies to hire foreign guest workers with advanced skills if they can’t find them domestically. Trump has called out firms that bring in foreign labor at lower salaries to replace U.S. employees, and in April he ordered the Departments of State, Justice, and Labor to suggest reforms to the H-1B system that will prevent the displacement of American workers.”
“Though Trump didn’t specifically address the H-1B visa program Monday, he did reassure the technology executives he wants to make sure that the U.S. immigration system benefits American technology companies,” Racke reports. “Trump echoed in those comments in his one-on-one asides with Cook, saying that Congress needs to work on “comprehensive” immigration reform.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: President Trump’s Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American, signed on April 18, 2017, can be read in full here.
The following editorial was published by The New York Times‘ Editorial Board, June 16, 2016, five months prior to the U.S. Presidential election:
Visa Abuses Harm American Workers
There is no doubt that H-1B visas — temporary work permits for specially talented foreign professionals — are instead being used by American employers to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Abbott Laboratories, the health care conglomerate based in Illinois, recently became the latest large American company to use the visas in this way, following the lead of other employers, including Southern California Edison, Northeast Utilities (now Eversource Energy), Disney, Toys “R” Us and New York Life.
The visas are supposed to be used only to hire college-educated foreigners in “specialty occupations” requiring “highly specialized knowledge,” and only when such hiring will not depress prevailing wages. But in many cases, laid-off American workers have been required to train their lower-paid replacements.
Lawmakers from both parties have denounced the visa abuse, but it is increasingly widespread, mainly because of loopholes in the law. For example, in most instances, companies that hire H-1B workers are not required to recruit Americans before hiring from overseas. Similarly, companies are able to skirt the rules for using H-1B workers by outsourcing the actual hiring of those workers to Tata, Infosys and other temporary staffing firms, mostly based in India.
Criticism of the visa process has been muted, and reform has moved slowly, partly because laid-off American workers — mostly tech employees replaced by Indian guest workers — have not loudly protested. Their reticence does not mean acceptance or even resignation. As explained in The Times on Sunday by Julia Preston, most of the displaced workers had to sign agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers as a condition of receiving severance pay. The gag orders have largely silenced the laid-off employees, while allowing the employers to publicly defend their actions as legal, which is technically accurate, given the loopholes in the law.
The conversation, however, is changing. Fourteen former tech workers at Abbott, including one who forfeited a chunk of severance pay rather than sign a so-called nondisparagement agreement, have filed federal claims with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saying they were discriminated against because of their ages and American citizenship. Tech workers from Disney have filed federal lawsuits accusing the company and two global outsourcing firms of colluding to supplant Americans with H-1B workers. Former employees of Eversource Energy have also begun to challenge their severance-related gag orders by publicly discussing their dismissals and replacement by foreign workers on H-1B and other visas.
Congressional leaders of both parties have questioned the nondisparagement agreements. Bipartisan legislation in the Senate would revise visa laws to allow former employees to protest their layoffs. Beyond that, what Congress really needs to do is close the loopholes that allow H-1B abuses.
— The New York Times‘ Editorial Board, June 16, 2016
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