Migration curbs make some slots hard to fill

LWASHINGTON unemployment, one of President Donald Trump’s priorities, is complicating another: curbing immigration. With the number of jobs available exceeding the number of Americans seeking jobs, employers are looking beyond the border to fill openings, and migrants are coming to the country in search of work.

Hotel and restaurant owner Todd Callewaert is short more than two dozen workers this season for his Mackinac Island, Michigan, businesses. “You can’t hire a line cook right now. It’s impossible, even for 20 bucks an hour,” he said. “We usually fill the gap with visa workers, but we can’t even get those this year.”

The Labor Department said Friday the unemployment rate was 3.9 percent, near the 18-year low set in May, and employers are adding jobs at a faster pace than last year.

Trump has made it clear employers should be trying to attract American workers through wage increases and other incentives, not filling jobs with immigrants.

“Curbing immigration is essential to growing wages and ensuring available jobs go to American workers, not foreign workers,” White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told The Associated Press. “As immigration curbs

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put into place, more and more Americans will be absorbed back into the workforce, especially those who have been left out due to poor work history or difficult life circumstances.”

The administration has made it harder to come to the U.S. for work, legally or otherwise. Work visas are costly, complicated and limited. Large-scale, job-seeking migration through a porous border is long gone.

Frandy Frauville, 35, joined a wave of Haitians who came to Tijuana, Mexico, from Brazil starting in 2016. Brazil welcomed Haitians after that

country’s 2010 earthquake. But Frauville grew tired of factory jobs in Mexico that barely allowed him to cover rent and food. Lured by the prospects of better work and joining family near Miami, he lined up with his 5-yearold daughter at a border crossing.

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” he said.

Many economists say immigration is actually good for the economy and migrants provide complementary work to the jobs Americans do. Despite Trump’s push, some business owners say they just can’t get Americans to fill the jobs.

A.J. Erskine is vice president of Cowart Seafood Group, which includes a Virginia oyster company

of about 75 employees. “Entry-level is $12.13 an hour,” he said. “I don’t know how much higher we can go without being unable to sell oysters.” He said the company has been in business more than a half-century, and despite massive recruiting efforts, it can’t keep American workers.

“We just don’t have people who want to come out and shuck oysters at 3 in the morning, and I don’t blame them,” he said.

Some, like Erksine, are willing to front the cost associated with a temporary work visa, about $4,000 per employee for workers holding seasonal, non-agricultural jobs. But the visas are capped at 66,000 annually, with 15,000 additional visas this year.

Economists say the hiring crunch could be eased in part by increasing the visas available during boom years and decreasing them when the economy is weaker. But those changes must be made by Congress.

Those turning a blind eye to immigration status, or hiring people with false identification, face crackdowns by immigration agents. Agents raided an Ohio garden center in the summer, arresting 114 workers and accusing the business of unlawful employment of aliens and fraud.

“It’s not worth the risk for us to hire people we’re not sure about,” said Callewaert, the hotel and restaurant owner. But a lack of staff means the business can’t grow, he said.