Cape deals with visa Cuts
Normally has influx of seasonal foreign workers at beaches
‘It’s really disturbing because we are really busy.’
JANET DEMETRI The Friendly Fisherman
At this time of the year, The Friendly Fisherman on Cape Cod is usually bustling with foreign students clearing tables and helping prepare orders of clam strips or fish and chips.
But because of a freeze on visas, Janet Demetri won’t be employing the 20 or so workers it usually has this summer. So as the crowds rush back, Demetri must work with nine employees for her Eastham restaurant and seafood market — forcing her to shutter the business twice a week.
“It’s really disturbing because we are really busy,” said Demetri. “We can’t keep up once the doors are open.”
The Trump administration announced last month that it was extending a ban on green cards and adding many temporary visas to the freeze, including J-1 cultural exchange visas and H-2B visas, which are temporary, nonimmigrant visas for nonagricultural labor, such as seasonal work — usually at or just above minimum wage.
The move was billed as a chance to free up 525,000 jobs to Americans hard hit by the economic downturn. Supporters of immigration reform insisted it should be easy to find Americans to bus tables and sell souvenirs at popular tourist destinations.
“The work that people on H-2B visas do or on J-1 summer work travel is not something that is alien to Americans,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for restrictions. “Those jobs are already mostly done by Americans whether it’s landscaping, making beds or scooping ice cream. The employers are just going to have to up their game in recruitment because there are 20 million people who are unemployed whom they could be drawing from.”
More than 108,000 J-1 summer work travel visas were issued last year, according to the State Department, but only 1,787 so far this year.
Mark Lazarus, the president and owner of Lazarus Entertainment Group in Myrtle Beach, S.C., employs 1,000 workers at his three theme parks. About 150 of those are usually J-1 visa holders but none came this year. As a result, he has cut his hours and reduced the number of cashiers.
Lazarus agrees with Trump’s efforts to crackdown on illegal immigration but admits the J-1 ban “baffles me.” There aren’t enough students to fill seasonal jobs in Myrtle Beach, he said, and worries the ban will hurt the fragile economy.
“Our revenues are going to be down because we are cutting our hours and they will be down because we can’t open all the amenities that everyone has,” he said.
Demetri said she advertised in newspapers and online for prep cooks, cashiers and counter help at the Friendly Fisherman. Despite offering to pay $14 an hour for training and starting wages of $16 an hour plus tips, she had few takers beyond “14-year-old kids” who are limited by the hours they can work and jobs they can do.
“These students aren’t taking any jobs away from locals, not a single one,” Demetri said of the J-1 visa holders.