Parsing Immigration Policy

The Center for Immigration Studies recently uncovered what appears to be deliberate participation in alien smuggling by the Department of Homeland Security. Todd Bensman, the Center’s senior national security fellow, revealed the facilitation of illegal entry of large numbers of aliens across the Rio Grande River. George Fishman, the Center’s senior legal fellow, joins Parsing Immigration Policy to examine the legal implications for the Biden administration as he detailed in a recent report.If proven, these allegations would constitute criminal violations of the federal anti-alien-smuggling law, with the greatest culpability falling on the members of the Biden administration who came up with the scheme and ordered it carried out.Fishman draws parallels between what he has dubbed “Rio Grande-Gate” and congressional Democrats’ investigation into the Reagan administration’s “Iran-Contra Affair”. He hopes that Democrats will treat the allegations against Biden’s DHS with the same level of seriousness.Fishman also urges Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate this matter, given doubts that AG Garland’s DOJ could conduct a fair investigation. The next administration could also investigate, as the statute of limitations on most alien smuggling crimes is five years.In his closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, discusses a different potential courtroom drama involving the Biden administration. This week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to stop Texas from putting up marine barriers along the Rio Grande to prevent illegal aliens from crossing into the U.S. and it’s likely that Texas will invoke the invasion clauses of the U.S. and Texas constitutions in its defense, representing the first time that issue would be litigated.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestGeorge Fishman is the Senior Legal Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.RelatedRio Grande-Gate: Are Biden administration officials deliberately engaged in alien smuggling and are they subject to criminal prosecution?Texas DPS Defends the Border; CBP Helps Migrants EnterTexas to Deploy Marine Barrier in the Rio Grande to Block New Surge of ImmigrantsVideo: A Cold Border War Breaks Out Between Abbott’s Texas and Biden’s White HouseFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on YouTube, Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

Conflict has erupted at the Texas-Mexico border between two different arms of law enforcement – Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP has been instructed by the Biden administration to bring migrants they encounter into the country, after which they are released with a notice to appear, and then put on a bus to an American city of their choosing, essentially assisting migrants in their illegal entry into the U.S. Texas DPS has taken border enforcement into its own hands, physically blocking migrants from entering along the Mexican border with Texas and arresting illegal migrants for trespassing when they cross.To discuss this “border cold war”, Todd Bensman, the Center for Immigration Studies’ Texas-based senior national security fellow, joins this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy. He shares what he saw firsthand during his visit to Eagle Pass, Texas and the cross-border town of Piedras Negras, Mexico. Bensman explains that migrants will call out to Border Patrol for assistance when stopped by Texas DPS, as they are almost guaranteed entry to the U.S. once in CBP custody. Bensman points out the irony of the situation – “Not so long ago, immigrants trying to cross illegally would hide from the Border Patrol, but now they’re sort of like the saviors.”In his closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, discusses a British government plan, that is on its way to becoming law, to deter illegal asylum seekers. Similar in many ways to Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, the Illegal Immigration Bill would ensure that illegal immigrants could not use asylum as a pretext for entering the country. Instead of being released in Britain, they would be sent to Rwanda to apply for asylum where they could settle or sent to another safe third country.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestTodd Bensman is the Senior National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.RelatedTexas vs. Biden — State Fights to Enforce Border, as White House Waves in Illegal MigrantsDispatch from a Militarized Texas Farm - Where Biden's Federal Agents Are Sabotaging the State's Desperate Border EnforcementFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on YouTube, Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

Sanctuary jurisdictions are states or localities that obstruct the enforcement of immigration laws and shield criminals from federal authorities. And Washington sends millions in funding to them anyway.On this episode of Parsing Immigration Policy, host and Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian is joined by the Center’s Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan to discuss a new report that details how much money the federal government has given to sanctuary jurisdictions. Vaughan explains, “The Department of Justice has a number of law enforcement-related funding programs that give money for various purposes to local and state police, and a very large share of that money … goes to jurisdictions that are actively subverting the enforcement of the immigration laws by the federal government, the same federal government that’s giving them money.”The report uses publicly available information to quantify the amount of money that has gone to these jurisdictions that actively obstruct the legitimate activities of ICE, at the expense of law-abiding members of their communities. Vaughan also explains how Congress can hold these jurisdictions accountable and discourage sanctuary policies.In his closing commentary, Mark Krikorian highlights the Biden administration’s recent announcement of its “Family Reunification Parole Program” for certain aliens in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, which would allow nationals from these countries to skip the line to enter the country ahead of all other green card-eligible aliens.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestJessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.RelatedStill Subsidizing Sanctuaries: DOJ sends millions to jurisdictions that undermine federal law and public safetyMap: Sanctuary Cities, Counties, and StatesThis is the Hometown of San Francisco’s Drug DealersAre Immigrants Less Willing to Report Crime? Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey says “No.”DHS Creates Yet Another Parole Program for Aliens to Cut in LineFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on YouTube, Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

This week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy examines two recent immigration-related Supreme Court opinions and delves into the implications of those rulings for immigration law enforcement, public safety, and the role of Congress in shaping immigration policy.Andrew Arthur, the Center’s fellow in law and policy, and Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, start the discussion with an analysis of U.S. v. Texas. In Texas, the Court held that the states of Texas and Louisiana lacked standing to challenge the immigration-enforcement “guidelines”, issued by DHS Secretary Alejandro, that limit ICE officers ability to detain criminal aliens. Notably, the majority did not even review the district and circuit court findings that Mayorkas’ guidelines would mean more criminal aliens would be released onto the streets, imposing significant costs on the states.Now that the justices have held that the states lack standing to challenge the Biden administration’s non-enforcement policies, will Congress use the weapons of inter-branch warfare – the power of the purse, impeachment, and legislation – to force the executive to comply with federal statutes mandating that aliens convicted of specific crimes be detained and deported?In the second case, U.S. v. Hansen, the justices held that a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act making it a crime to encourage or induce an alien to enter the United States illegally is not “overbroad” in that it prohibits free speech under the First Amendment. The defendant in that case had scammed aliens out of nearly $2 million by promising them he could obtain citizenship for them through “adult adoption”—a pathway to status that does not exist in the law. Hansen argued that the law was overly broad, but the Court disagreed.The public and Congress are very divided on the issue of illegal immigration, so congressional action seems unlikely. But Arthur says, “the Texas v. U.S. case is a prime example of the Court being tired of being pulled into cases.” Yet in a final discussion on the prospects for a separate case captioned Texas v. U.S., in which the states allege that the Obama-era DACA program is illegal, both Arthur and von Spakovsky predict it will head to SCOTUS.In the closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and the host of Parsing Immigration Policy, highlights Florida’s tough new immigration law, which went into effect July 1 and focuses on making it more difficult for illegal aliens to work in the state – thus weakening one of the main drivers of illegal immigration.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestsHans von Spakovsky is the Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage FoundationAndrew Arthur is the Fellow of Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.RelatedSCOTUS: States Can’t Stop the Admin from Protecting Dangerous Criminal AliensSupreme Court Declares DHS Can Ignore Congressional Enforcement MandatesDeSantis Rolls Out His Immigration Campaign WebsiteFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

This week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy covers the impact of immigration on the American education system. Two experts from the Center for Immigration Studies join us to discuss this issue. Steven Camarota, Director of Research, talks about the impact of both legal and illegal immigration on public schools throughout the United States, which was the subject of a recent report that provides a visual representation of the impact on the education system in each community. Todd Bensman, Senior National Security Fellow, focuses on how a recent influx of illegal immigration has affected one specific community outside Houston, Texas.The findings in Camarota’s report show that students from immigrant households account for an enormous share of public school students in many areas. Moreover, a larger share of students from immigrant households come from low-income families and speak a foreign language at home, creating significant challenges, often in areas already struggling to educate students from disadvantaged backgrounds.Bensman examins the effect of immigration on public schools in Liberty County, Texas, about 40 miles north of Houston. In just the last five years, tens of thousands of illegal-immigrant families with school-age children have taken up residence in the county.. Case studies in communities near the border where illegal immigrants often settle are important in understanding the impact of illegal immigration, because, as Bensman says on the show, “Public school districts are going to be probably first impacted in the visible, noticeable, pocketbook sort of way, because this mass migration crisis is very child-centric.”In his closing commentary, host of the podcast and Executive Director of CIS Mark Krikorian highlights a series of important Supreme Court decisions on immigration, which will be the subject of next week’s podcast episode.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestsSteven Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies.Todd Bensman is the Senior National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.RelatedMapping the Impact of Immigration on Public SchoolsBook: OVERRUN: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in American HistoryAmerica’s Public Schools: Canaries in the Coal Mine of the Biden Border CrisisFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

This week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy is an immigration roundup, discussing two issues in the news. The conversation highlights the recent extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for multiple countries, and how the anti-enforcement efforts of Vice President Kamala Harris when she was in the Senate contributed to a child migrant labor explosion, and the present opportunity to change that policy in the forthcoming DHS funding bill.The Trump administration attempted to allow the “temporary” protection (including work permits) for illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua to expire, because the natural disasters that had been the reasons for that designation had long passed. It was stopped from doing so by the courts. (Hurricane Mitch, the reason that illegal aliens from Honduras and Nicaragua who were in the U.S. when it struck their home countries received this status, happened more than a quarter century ago.) Elizabeth Jacobs, the Center’s director of regulatory affairs and policy, explains in this week’s episode that the Biden administration has rescinded the Trump policy and renewed the “temporary” protection yet again.For his portion of the show, Jon Feere, the Center’s director of investigations, brings attention to the increase of child labor brought on by the longstanding policy of handing over unaccompanied alien children (UACs) apprehended at the border to sponsors – who are often in the country illegally -- without effectively vetting them. Under the Trump administration, ICE began arresting sponsors who were here illegally. In response, then-Senator Kamala Harris put forth a bill that prohibited the arrest of these sponsors, thus potentially placing children in the care of questionable adults and encouraging the trafficking of children to our border. Feere says, “I’ll put it bluntly – if you’re a random illegal alien somewhere in the United States, you can go down to the border and pick up a kid and basically disappear.” A slightly modified version of Harris’s bill has been attached to DHS funding bills, and the Republican majority in the House has an opportunity to remove it.In his closing commentary, host and executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian details a recent email the Center received from an illegal immigrant asking whether he’s better off going to the border and asking for asylum rather than remaining in the U.S. and waiting for a long-promised amnesty.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestsJon Feere is the Director of Investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies.Elizabeth Jacobs is the Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.RelatedDHS Continues TPS for El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and NicaraguaBiden Administration and Congressional Democrats Facilitated ‘Explosion’ in Illegal Alien Child LaborNY Post: Migrant kid labor brutality wrought by Vice President Kamala HarrisNYT Reveals Child Labor Exploitation Corresponds to Actions Taken by Harris, Biden, and MayorkasFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

This week’s guest on Parsing Immigration Policy has over 35 years of experience in immigration policy and activism, perhaps more experience than Mark Krikorian, host of the podcast and executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Joe Guzzardi is a California native whose journey through immigration activism began when he was teaching English as a second language to adults in the Central Valley.The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which legalized nearly three million illegal immigrants, included a requirement to “learn English.” The INS defined this as 40 hours of English/civics instruction and the ability to show basic knowledge; as a result, enrollment in English classes went through the roof. Guzzardi noticed that many students had been living in the U.S. for years before taking the classes, but came speaking little or no English. The 40 hours of instruction were not sufficient to provide students with English language skills, yet he was pressured to sign-off on their having achieved basic knowledge.Guzzardi details his advocacy for greater immigration enforcement, which began with his writing on immigration issues in local Central California papers, and later led him to run (along with 100 others) for governor of California during the recall of Gray Davis in 2003.Krikorian closes the podcast with thoughts on this week’s extension of “Temporary” Protected Status for more than 300,000 illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, some having received TPS, and had it repeatedly renewed, for more than 20 years. As he notes, “There’s nothing as permanent as Temporary Protected Status.”HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestJoe Guzzardi is a syndicated columnist writing on immigration policy issues.RelatedJoe Guzzardi syndicated columnsInstitute for Sound Public PolicyFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

The CBP One app is one of the latest tools the Biden administration is using to funnel illegal immigrants into the United States, while obfuscating the true scope of the border crisis. As Mark Krikorian, host of Parsing Immigration Policy and executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, puts it, the app allows illegal immigrants to “essentially schedule their illegal immigration into the United States.”Andrew Arthur, the Center’s resident fellow in law and policy and a former immigration judge, joins this week’s podcast to discuss the creation of the CBP One app and how it operates. At its inception during the Covid pandemic in October 2020, the CBP One app was intended to allow legitimate travelers to schedule appointments at ports of entry to limit the amount of time that travelers were spending face-to-face with CBP officers.However, the Biden administration now uses the app to allow travelers arriving without proper documentation to enter the United States – travelers who normally would have no right to enter the country. Migrants can only make appointments through the app in Mexico and Central America, which has encouraged aspiring illegal immigrants to employ smugglers. There is also now a huge backlog of migrants in Mexico waiting for appointments through the CBP One app.In his closing commentary, Krikorian highlights the deceptive CBP border numbers released this week. The Biden administration reports a 70 percent reduction in unlawful entries “between ports of entry.” However, closer inspection of the numbers shows that the Biden administration has simply allowed illegal immigrants to enter at ports of entry using the CBP One app, so they appear “legal.”HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestAndrew Arthur is the Resident Fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.RelatedAliens Without Documents at the Ports Aren’t ‘Seeking to Enter the United States Lawfully’What’s Biden Doing with Migrants at the Ports of Entry?Mission Accomplished at the Border?FollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

The Guatemalan Highlands have a low homicide rate and strong family and community structure. For those in this region, immigration to the United States is an economic decision and usually means paying smugglers to send a teenage family member to find a job and sending money home – in the past couple of years under the guise of seeking asylum. But the strong appeal of migration northward has had a staggering impact on communities, destabilizing the family structure, putting the minors in harm’s way, and causing financial harm.Dr. David Stoll, a professor of anthropology at Middlebury College, has spent decades doing field research in Guatemala in the Mayan town of Nebaj. He has documented the migration stream to the United States from 1997-2005 and the crushing impact of the collapse of jobs in the U.S. in 2006. The U.S. jobs had been the only hope for most to pay back the high-interest smuggler loans. The result was a devastating town financial crash that included many families losing their homes.Stoll and Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, discuss the U.S. policies and loopholes that encourage Guatemalan families to send their work-ready teenagers to the U.S., as described in Stoll’s recent article, “Why Are Underage Central Americans in US Factories?”In his closing commentary, Krikorian highlights a recent blog post by Andrew Arthur, "What’s Biden Doing with Migrants at the Ports of Entry?".HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestDr. David Stoll is a Professor of Anthropology at Middlebury CollegeRelatedWhy Are Underage Central Americans in US Factories?Book: El Norte or Bust!: How Migration Fever and Microcredit Produced a Financial Crash in a Latin American TownRemittances as Rents in a Guatemalan Town: Debt, Asylum, the U.S. Job Market, and Vulnerability to Human TraffickingBook: Enrique's Journey Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His MotherWhat’s Biden Doing with Migrants at the Ports of Entry?An Overwhelmed Border Patrol Is Missing an Epidemic of Runners and ‘Got-aways’FollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

The H-1B visa program, the largest U.S. foreign worker program, was created to provide temporary workers for employers unable to find American or green card workers for a specialty occupation, like computers, engineering, science, and technology. Over time the program has been abused by employers who are not experiencing labor shortages and by outsourcing firms.The result has been the displacement of Americans workers and the exploitation of H-1B workers. There are, however, reforms that can bring the visa program back in line with its original design of being temporary and limited to high-skill occupations where there are no Americans or green card holders qualified for employment.On this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy, host of the podcast and Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian is joined by Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers, and David North, a Center fellow. They discuss the historical changes of the H-1B program, the impact on wages, working conditions, and offshoring, and the fact it is rarely temporary and the workers are rarely “the best and brightest”.In his closing commentary, Krikorian highlights the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which is the subject of an ongoing, years-long lawsuit. OPT is a feeder into the H-1B program, allowing foreign college grads to pretend they are still students, and to work for up to three years after graduation if they studied in a STEM field. This program is also subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, since the employers do not have to pay payroll taxes for Social Security, Medicare, and the federal unemployment insurance programs because the workers are still considered “students”.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestsKevin Lynn is the founder of U.S. Tech Workers.David North is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration StudiesRelatedHow to Reduce the Federal Debt and the H-1B at the Same TimeDid the Indian Body-Shops Not Do Layoffs or Did They Keep Them Secret?H-1B Protections for Americans Even Weaker than ReportedH-1B Is Designed to Displace American WorkersA History of the ‘Optional Practical Training’ Guestworker ProgramFollowFollow Parsing Immigration Policy on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts.Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".