\n<\/p>\n
Florida took another step Thursday toward banning all its public universities from hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas. <\/p>\n
The state university system\u2019s Board of Governors will now take public comments for two weeks on a proposed prohibition on hiring any new employees on H-1Bs through Jan. 5 of next year. The vote from a committee to further the proposal was a voice vote, with no nays heard from any committee member. The proposal will come back to the full board for a vote after the public comment period ends. <\/p>\n
If enacted, Florida would become the second state to ban the use of H-1B visas at public universities. Texas governor Greg Abbott announced a one-year freeze earlier this week\u2014a move that prompted pushback from faculty.<\/p>\n
The state bans come after President Trump placed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications in September (international workers who are already legal residents aren\u2019t required to pay the fee). The next month, Florida governor Ron DeSantis ordered the state\u2019s universities to \u201cpull the plug on the use of these H-1B visas.\u201d Fourteen of the Board of Governors\u2019 17 members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. <\/p>\n
DeSantis complained about professors coming from China, \u201csupposed Palestine\u201d and elsewhere. He added that \u201cwe need to make sure our citizens here in Florida are first in line for job opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Universities use the program to hire faculty, doctors and researchers and argue it\u2019s required to meet needs in health care, engineering and other specialized occupations. Some conservatives contend that the program is being abused.<\/p>\n
Discussion about the proposed ban lasted about 15 minutes Thursday, during which no committee member strongly advocated for the policy. Much of the time consisted of the board\u2019s only faculty voting member and its only student voting member\u2014neither of whom are members of the committee\u2014reading off their objections to the move. Among their concerns: university system leaders\u2019 plans to collect information on the H-1B program during the hiring moratorium, instead of collecting the data before making a decision. <\/p>\n
Kimberly Dunn, chair of the statewide Advisory Council of Faculty Senates and the faculty board representative, said institutions and the university system \u201crely on the H-1B process to recruit world-class talent to our institutions.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it is a pediatric cancer surgeon or a globally recognized researcher, these individuals directly contribute to Floridians\u2019 health, safety and economic success,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cIn many cases, the H-1B visa is the only viable pathway for bringing this level of expertise to our state.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cLimiting our ability to recruit the very best talent in the world risks undermining the excellence that has positioned our system as a national leader,\u201d Dunn added. She said the reputational damage from the ban could outlast the yearlong moratorium. <\/p>\n
She urged the system to collect the data before pausing hiring new H-1B visa workers. <\/p>\n
Carson Dale, Florida State University\u2019s student body president and chair of the Florida Student Association, said he believes that \u201cAmerican taxpayer dollars should support hiring Americans whenever possible.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I part ways is with the mechanism chosen here,\u201d Dale said. \u201cThis is not a neutral reform; it is a categorical restriction that determines who we are allowed to consider regardless of who is most qualified.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said the prohibition undermines Florida universities\u2019 commitment to \u201cmerit\u201d and goes against other actions that Florida has taken, including scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives because \u201cwe believed they risked interfering with merit-based selection.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis regulation has the practical effect of excluding otherwise highly qualified candidates before individual merit can be assessed,\u201d Dale said. \u201cThat matters because the labor market for advanced research talent is global.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said Trump\u2019s $100,000 fee was already implemented \u201cto deter overuse and protect U.S. workers.\u201d He noted Elon Musk, along with other entrepreneurs, came to the U.S. from overseas. <\/p>\n
\u201cTop-tier candidates are not going to pause their careers to wait on a single state,\u201d Dale said. \u201cWhen Florida removes itself from consideration for an entire hiring cycle, those candidates accept offers elsewhere.\u201d <\/p>\n
Last fiscal year, according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database, the federal government approved 253 H-1B visa holders to work at the University of Florida, about 110 each at Florida State University and the University of South Florida, 47 at the University of Central Florida, and smaller numbers at other public institutions. <\/p>\n
Ray Rodrigues, the university system\u2019s chancellor, told the committee that if the H-1B hiring pause is approved, his office and the universities \u201cwill be studying the cost of the H-1B program as well as how the program is used by our universities, including identifying the areas where the program is currently being used and whether those areas are of strategic need.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also said the study will look at whether employers have used the program to bring in employees who are \u201cpaid less than market wage.\u201d He added that the system plans to work with universities to identify other areas that should be included in the study.<\/p>\n
Alan Levine, chair of the Nomination and Governance Committee, which considered the proposal, appeared to acknowledge the issues that a blunt yearlong ban on H-1B hires could cause. <\/p>\n
\u201cI would encourage the universities\u2014if an issue arises that\u2019s unforeseen, particularly in areas like medical schools, faculty, engineering, where we have contracts with the Defense Department, things like that\u2014where there\u2019s issues that become an issue of concern for you, please bring those to the chancellor so that we can make a decision about how to address it,\u201d Levine said. \u201cWe can always bring the group back together again if we need to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly there are physician shortages, and there\u2019s needs particularly in high-acuity specialties in health care and medicine, and certainly there\u2019s issues in certain STEM areas like engineering, so it\u2019s understood,\u201d Levine said. \u201cThe goal here is to collect information.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Florida took another step Thursday toward banning all its public universities from hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas. The state university system\u2019s Board of Governors will now take public comments for two weeks on a proposed prohibition on hiring any new employees on H-1Bs through Jan. 5 of next year. The vote from a committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[4753,163,15696,3649,9232,3509,177,202],"class_list":{"0":"post-43155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-accepting","9":"tag-ban","10":"tag-comment","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-h1b","13":"tag-hiring","14":"tag-public","15":"tag-visa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}