Candidates debating immigration policy have highlighted H-1B visas as a sophisticated mechanism for Big Business to legally subvert the American labor market.

H-1B visas bring skilled foreigners to work in the United States in science, technology, engineering and mathematics positions – taking just the kind of jobs the American middle class needs for a decent living.

Businesses use these programs to displace American workers, often forcing people to train their foreign replacements at risk of losing severance pay. It has happened throughout Silicon Valley, and even at Disney.

At recent congressional hearings, experts from Rutgers and Howard universities gave testimony that American workers and STEM students cannot find work in appropriate fields. Flat and falling wages are a confirming market indicator that there is no shortage of American labor to fill these jobs.

Unsatisfied with even these artificially depressed wages, Big Business is pushing Congress to triple H-1B visas from 65,000 to 245,000. Our own Sen. Angus King is a co-sponsor of the current bill, S.153, referred to cryptically as “I-Squared Act of 2015.” It should be called “The American Worker Displacement Act.”

So, Angus King is sponsoring a law to give a quarter-million quality jobs to foreigners. Where’s the sense in that? These are the high-skill jobs we so much desire, and they are being given, not to our own young folks, but to another category of foreign guest workers.

When one constantly hears about the need for quality jobs for Mainers and our college STEM graduates, how can Sen. King support this egregious bit of legislation?

Christopher Reimer

Arundel

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