Congressman Lance Gooden (R-TX) Calls for Further Protections for American Workers

Press Release

As you know, the economic shutdown set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic has had an
unprecedented effect on the American worker. These effects are exacerbated by existing labor and
immigration laws, which allow millions of foreign laborers to compete for jobs through guest
worker programs. Therefore, we urge you to suspend the issuance of guest worker visas until
unemployment returns to normal levels. We also ask that you permanently suspend the EB-5
immigrant visa program. By immediately suspending these programs, your Administration can
drastically improve future employment prospects for American workers.

Your April 22, 2020 Executive Order to suspend a limited class of immigrant visas for sixty days
was a step in the right direction. However, the greater threat to American workers remains the
unaddressed guest worker programs.

The United States admits more than one million nonimmigrant guest workers every year.
Meanwhile, over 30 million Americans are out of work, representing nearly one-fifth of our
country's total workforce. Before the coronavirus pandemic ravaged our economy, the
unemployment rate stood at 3.5 percent. With the unemployment rate at levels unseen since the
Great Depression, our government should not be importing the competition of American workers.

In addition to the devastating unemployment figures, scores of businesses have had to cease
operations. There will still be too few jobs for the millions of recently fired workers when regular
activity resumes. Allowing foreign-born guest workers to fill jobs at a time like this is an injustice
against unemployed Americans.

A number of these programs are particularly egregious. As service industry businesses remain
shuttered due to social distancing restrictions, hundreds of thousands of waiters, bartenders, cooks,
and managers have been jobless for months. They will be forced to compete for a limited number
of positions with H-2B guest workers when venues reopen. While the H-2B program is capped at
66,000 workers per year, these workers demand significantly less compensation than an average
American vying for the same job.

Skilled guest worker programs must be suspended as well. Soon, hundreds of thousands of college
seniors will graduate with degrees but no job opportunities. Thousands of white-collar workers
face broad, recurring layoffs. Throughout all of this, our country continues to import hundreds of
thousands of guest workers to compete for white-collar jobs under the H-1B, L-1, and Optional
Practical Training (OPT) programs. In 2019, the State Department issued over 265,000 visas
between the H-1B and L-1 programs. The workers enrolled in these programs hold no unique skills
relative to those held by American college graduates, but the cost of their services is significantly
less. Incredibly, employers do not pay any payroll taxes for recent graduates working under the
OPT program. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could immediately put an end to this,
an action which would free up at least 200,000 jobs for American graduates.

Finally, we urge you to rescind the exemption in your proclamation for the controversial and
ineffective EB-5 investor visa, which has been overwhelmingly abused by Chinese nationals to
buy American citizenship. This program concentrates vast financial resources into already wealthy
parts of the country, which is completely contradictory to the stated justification for the program.
It does nothing to elevate struggling parts of our country, much less hire Americans looking for
work.

Americans are looking to the Federal Government for leadership. The coronavirus pandemic
continues to wreak havoc to our health, economy, and society. You have cited the effect these
programs have on our labor force and taken the initial steps to mitigate those negative impacts.
We urge you to further use your legal authority and suspend substantially all temporary guest
worker programs. Such action would provide the greatest possible protection for American
workers and further exemplify your commitment to the economic prosperity of our great nation.