[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6857-6858]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        IMMIGRATION RULE CHANGE

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, the Departments of Homeland 
Security and Commerce announced a proposed rule change that would 
extend employment authorizations to spouses of certain H-1B workers. 
The rule says that spouses who have already begun the process of 
seeking legal permanent resident status

[[Page 6858]]

through employment, or those who have been granted an extension beyond 
their 6-year limit of stay in the country, are eligible for employment 
authorizations.
  On a call with media today, Homeland Security Deputy Secretary 
Mayorkas said that the intent of this regulation is to make it more 
attractive for foreign workers to come to and stay in the United 
States. Under current law, Congress authorized 85,000 H-1B visas to be 
available each year for high-skilled workers. Yet, with this sweeping 
rule, more workers will be allowed to come, work, and compete with U.S. 
workers in high-skilled fields despite the well-documented fraud in the 
H-1B program. The Department believes that the rule change will allow 
more than 97,000 people to obtain employment authorization in the first 
year alone.
  While we're all interested in attracting the best and the brightest 
foreign workers to the United States, the Obama administration clearly 
doesn't seem concerned with the millions of unemployed Americans, and 
those who have been forced out of their jobs because companies prefer 
to hire lower-paid workers from abroad.
  In addition to their lack of compassion and understanding for 
American workers, it is disturbing that the administration is once 
again circumventing Congress and implementing their own rules. As with 
other unilateral actions this administration has taken, I question 
their legal authority to issue this rule.
  In 2001, Congress explicitly laid out in statute that the Secretary 
could provide work authorizations to certain spouses of foreign 
workers. Congress said that work authorizations could be given to 
spouses of L1, intercompany transfers, and E, treaty traders/investors, 
visa holders. Congress did not, at that time, give spouses of H-1B visa 
holders the permission to work. It could have, but it did not.
  The administration may claim that it has broad authority to issue 
work authorizations to anyone in the United States. If the executive 
branch has such broad authority, then why would Congress explicitly lay 
out the category of visa holders and foreign nationals who could work 
in the U.S.?
  And, what will come next? Where will this administration stop? What 
other categories of individuals will be granted work authorizations? 
The rule allows spouses of ``certain'' H-1B visa holders to work. What 
about the others? Why didn't the administration do a more comprehensive 
rule for all H-1B spouses? Maybe the Department realized they were 
already pushing the envelope with its authority. Will the 
administration push back against advocates of other nonimmigrant 
categories, or refuse to expand the rule to all spouses of H-1B visa 
holders?
  What is frustrating about this rule is that it flies in the face of 
the immigration bill that the Senate passed last summer. The bill, if 
passed, would allow spouses of H-1B holders to work. Section 4102 of S. 
744 would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to 
issue work authorization to those who are accompanying or following to 
join a principal H-1B worker. Inclusion of this provision signals that 
the Secretary does not currently have authority.
  Originally, the bill written by the Gang of Eight, only gave that 
authority to the Secretary if the home country of the foreign national 
did the same for U.S. workers. The Gang of Eight's bill said, ``The 
Secretary of Homeland Security shall authorize the alien spouse to 
engage in employment in the United States only if such spouse is a 
national of a foreign country that permits reciprocal employment.''
  The intent of the authors of the Senate bill was to ensure that 
American spouses were treated equally. The rule does not take this into 
consideration.
  The Obama administration claims it wants immigration reform, but they 
can not wait for Congress. They act on their own. And, they do it to 
the detriment of American workers. We need to get immigration reform 
right, and doing ad-hoc rules that fly in the face of the statute are 
not helpful to the process. What is next? Will the President 
unilaterally legalize the undocumented population because he can not 
have his way with Congress? President Obama has to prove that he can be 
trusted. Otherwise, American workers and the American people will 
continue to lose out because of his policies.

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