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Trump Freezes Green Cards, Many Work Visas Until End Of Year:
President Trump on Monday extended a freeze on green cards for new immigrants and signed an executive order to suspend new H-1B, L-1, J and other temporary work visas for skilled workers, managers and au pairs through the end of the year.
The goal of the move is to protect 525,000 jobs as part of the White House response to job losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, said a senior administration official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity. NPR first reported the impending order on Saturday.
"Americans have been hurt through no fault of their own due to the coronavirus," the official said. "And the president is prioritizing getting them back into the labor supply and getting them to work and standing on their own two feet again."
[...] But other workers will also be affected, including foreign au pairs who provide child care. Professors and scholars are not to be included in the order, the official said. There will be a provision to request exemptions. The order is not expected to affect immigrants and visa holders already in the United States.
[...] The order did not apply to H-2A agriculture workers, who Trump says are necessary to ensure grocery store shelves remain stocked with fruits and vegetables. Health care workers involved in treating coronavirus patients will also be exempt.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2020, @10:12AM (3 children)
This goes well beyond H-1B visas. So much of academia is built on exploitation, including the very thing you're describing.
There are a lot of foreign grad students, many from China and India, working in university labs. Pay is almost always horrendous for grad students whether they're domestic or international students. Faculty have the power to terminate assistantships without cause. For foreign students on J-1 visas, that usually means losing their visas and having to leave the country fairly quickly. The threat of having the assistantship revoked allows faculty to harass and abuse grad students or exploit them in ways like imposing excessively long work hours. If the student speaks up, they're at risk of losing their assistantship as retaliation.
American grad students and postdocs are still subject to abuse but the leverage just isn't quite as strong. The threat is more along the lines of having to go to a different university or perhaps being blacklisted through a bad reference. This is still quite common, but the leverage isn't quite as strong against domestic students and postdocs.
Academia is built on exploitation, whether it's grad students, postdocs, or adjunct faculty. The administrators cover up abuses and keep pay down for these groups while they're raising tuition and collecting salaries at least well into the six figure range. And if you're a faculty member who brings in a lot of grant (and F&A) money, you can get away with just about anything. Foreign students on J-1 visas who are funded by their advisors or departments might actually be subject to more exploitation than even people on H-1B visas.
We shouldn't tolerate involuntary servitude and exploitation. But the issues run far deeper than H-1B visas.
By the way, I work in academia. I've a postdoc. I've either directly witnessed or personally experienced everything I've described in this post. The abuses are rampant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2020, @11:37AM
i hope your "apple" falls far from the tree ...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2020, @02:50PM
Recently dug this out for another story here, Camile Pagila in 2011:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2020, @02:59PM
The abusive faculty are condemned to a lifetime of bullying Chinese 21-year olds. Nobody else can stand working with them.