A Reader Wonders Why We Aren't Hearing More About Unfurloughed Immigrants; We Explain
05/22/2013
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Re: A Department Of Defense Insider Reports Who ISN'T Being Furloughed: H1-B Visa Holders! and A Naturalized American Citizen Resents The DOD Furlough Exemption For H1 Visa Holders

From: An Inquisitive Reader [Email him]

This looks like a story that the mainstream press needs to pick up on. Especially Defense Language Institute, because it's run like a Gulag. Any leads on this story? I'd love to see the New York Times, or other major paper, run this story on their front page.

James Fulford writes: This isn't a secret, really. An unclassified memorandum available on the DoD website lists the people who are and aren't being furloughed, and explains why, in the case of the 257 Defense Language Institute H-lBs.

"20 CFR 655.73 1 [PDF] requires that the employer of a H-lB non-immigrant who is not performing work and is placed in a nonproductive status due to a decision by the employer (e.g., placed in a non-pay/non-duty status due to administrative furlough) pay the salaried employee the full pro-rata amount due, or to pay the hourly-wage employee for a full-time week (40 hours or such other number of hours as the employer can demonstrate to be full-time employment for hourly employees, or the full amount of the weekly salary for salaried employees) at the required wage for the occupation."[Furlough Memorandum, (PDF) From: Chuck Hagel, SecDef, May 14, 2013]

So DOD's claim is that furloughing the H-lBs wouldn't save the government money, because it's subject to the regulations that protect immigrants, and are supposed to keep the greedy employer from displacing Americans.

But seriously, the New York Times is never going to run a story about immigrant displacement of American workers on its front page, unless it can call them "entrepreneurs" or "victims of prejudice."

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