Protecting U.S. workers

Statement

The top Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee, Rep. Bobby Scott (Virginia) has joined my effort to make the U.S. Department of Labor help the U.S. workers "temporarily" laid off at the casino construction site in July. They are still out of work, yet construction continues using foreign workers with H-2B visas. To get H-2B visas employers must promise that U.S. workers will not lose their jobs; and Labor is supposed to enforce that promise. That has not happened. I alerted Assistant Secretary of Labor Katherine Brunett McGuire in August and asked for action. And I exposed what was going on in a statement on the floor of the House of Representatives. This week, with Ranking Member Scott, I took the issue directly to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta. We want a full and official explanation from the Secretary of why his department is not enforcing the law to protect U.S. workers. After all we did in the U.S. Workforce Act to incentivize hiring U.S. workers, we cannot stand by while foreign workers take over good-paying U.S. jobs.

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