Irish Government Revives E-3 Visa Bill to Outsource U.S. Jobs

APRIL 16: An Taoiseach, (Prime minister and head of government of Ireland) Leo Varadkar me
Charles McQuillan/Getty
Neil Munro

Irish politicians are lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to revive legislation that would allow European graduates to take thousands of American jobs sought by American graduates.

A closed-door push to pass the proposed E-3 visa legislation failed in 2018 when GOP Sen. Tom Cotton blocked the giveaway bill in the Senate.

The Irish politicians, including the prime minister, or Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, are using Pelosi’s visit to Ireland as an opportunity to revive the plan. This time, however, the Irish leaders suggest they will offer some additional benefits to Americans.

According to a report in thejournal.ie,

“We want to get this thing called the E3 visa over the line allow more young Irish people, generally graduates, to work in America. America is largely closed off,” said Varadkar.

The Taoiseach said he would also like to see more American students coming to Ireland, as well as retirees and skilled workers.

“So, it would go both ways,” he added.

Varadkar did not say how many European visas for skilled American workers he would offer in exchange to receiving U.S. visas for Irish graduates.

Also, Varadkar did not say how the program would be limited to people born in the Irish region of Europe. Under European law, youths from Germany, France, and other legal regions can quickly gain residence and legal status in Ireland. So, for example, Irish universities could recruit fee-paying European students by offering them access to the “Irish” E-3 visas after they graduate.

Varadkar reportedly pushed the E-3 visa plan to President Donald Trump during the Irish politicians’ visit to Washington D.C. on St. Patricks’s Day. According to the Irish Times, the leading establishment newspaper in the Irish region:

John Deasy, the Government’s envoy to the US Congress, said it was made clear to Mr Varadkar and the Irish delegation during the St Patrick’s Day programme in Washington that work will continue on the E3 plan.

“It was clear from our meetings around St Patrick’s Day that both the Republican and Democratic leadership offices want to continue to pursue the E3 Bill,” the Waterford TD said.

“Both Speaker Pelosi and president [Donald] Trump told us they are behind efforts to get this finished and [Democratic] congressman [Richard] Neal is one of its driving forces in the House. The congressional delegation visiting Ireland is an important step in continuing that process.”

The Irish embassy and Deasy did not respond to questions from Breitbart News.

In general, it is easy for politicians to talk up future deals in press conferences, but far more difficult to get fellow legislators to vote for a politically risky bill that would take jobs away from young graduates in their district. For example, GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder lost his Kansas seat in November after he pushed a plan that would quietly outsource hundreds of thousands of additional U.S. jobs to low wage graduates from India.

The E-3 visa bill would enlarge the huge, complex and little-understood visa-worker sector in U.S. economy. The sector keeps at least 1.5 million foreign college graduates in U.S. white collar jobs and helped to force down white-collar salaries even though blue-collar salaries rose by roughly 4 percent in 2018.

Also, Yoder’s Indian-giveaway bill has been revived in 2019 by Colorado. GOP Rep. Ken Buck, by North Dakota GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer, as well as Utah’s GOP Sen. Mike Lee. The bill is titled H.R.1044 and S.386. In turn, the proposed giveaway is prompting a pushback by American graduates who are trying to protect themselves from the white collar outsourcing industry.

 

These visa worker programs are profitable for U.S. investors, companies, and their subcontractors, but they provide almost no benefits to American graduates. For example, the “Optional Practical Training” program” allows U.S. universities to recruit foreign students with the promise of U.S. work permits, but there is no similar program for U.S. students to get visas and jobs in Europe.

In 2017, the OPT program provided U.S. work permits to roughly 400,000 foreign graduates.

The bigger H-1B program keeps roughly 1 million foreign graduates in U.S. white collar jobs, without offering a significant number of jobs in India or China for Americans.

This huge outsourcing sector is obscured from voters because it has grown slowly over the years and because it is difficult to describe. It gets little or no coverage from the establishment media, even though it cuts the salaries paid to American graduates and drives up real-estate prices in New York, Washington, and many other cities.

Politicians also go to great lengths to hide the sector. In 2018, for example, legislators hid the E-3 visa bill from the media until the last minute, and then rushed it through the House with a non-recorded vote.

The E-3 visa would provide several thousand visas to European graduates based in Ireland. But any vote to pass the outsourcing bill would expose U.S legislators to risk during the 2020 election when both parties will try to maximize their turnout.

Varadkar recognizes that U.S. voters are not hospitable to foreign workers. He downplayed a push to win amnesty for Irish living illegally in the United States. According to the thejournal.ie:

The undocumented Irish in America is also on the agenda, though the Taoiseach said “it is a very difficult issue”.

“It is a bigger issue than just an Irish issue, because it applies to so many Latinos as well, but I do want to talk about that and find a comprehensive solution to that.”

The Irish media is very anti-Trump, just as it was very opposed to President Ronald Reagan. For example, a leading Irish political journalist tweeted this image of Pelosi during her visit to Ireland:

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.

But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants, refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar guest workers, in addition to approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers, and also tolerates about eight million illegal workers and the inflow of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.

This federal policy of flooding the market with cheap white-collar graduates and blue-collar foreign labor is intended to boost economic growth for investors.

This policy works by shifting enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts children’s schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.

 

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