#Elise Stefanik secures Canadian exemption to Trump’s immigration ban

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Rep. Elise Stefanik
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WASHINGTON — Canadians will be exempt from President Trump’s sweeping ban on foreign workers after New York Rep. Elise Stefanik lobbied the administration over the move which would hamstring her upstate district.

Stefanik, a rising star in the Republican Party and a close adviser to President Trump, voiced her concern after the president on Monday signed an executive order suspending several popular working visas until the end of the year.

“I represent a very large swath of the New York-Canadian border and a huge amount of my workforce is dependent upon that cross border trade,” Stefanik told The Post on Thursday.

Stefanik’s rural 21st congressional district runs from the Canadian border to Albany and has large tourism and manufacturing sectors which depend on immigrant labor.

“I’ve worked out the uniquely northern border challenges throughout this crisis starting with making sure that our special health care workers who were Canadians that work in New York hospitals were able to cross the border and continue that work,” she continued, referring to the Canadian border closure during the coronavirus pandemic.

Monday’s executive order applies to H-1B visas, which are used by major American technology companies, and their immediate families, H-2B visas for non-agricultural seasonal workers, J-1 visas for exchange students and L-1 visas for managers of multinational corporations.

In a rare split from the Trump administration, Stefanik said she didn’t support the measures.

“I’m concerned about the administration. This is an area where I differ,” she said.

“I have a lot of tourist-based employers that rely on the J-1. H-2Bs are important for Lake George,” she continued, mentioning the popular tourist destination.

“I’ve really prioritized the needs of the employers in my district and I think this is a workable solution. It’s a step in the right direction from where we were even a few days ago,” she added.

The news was praised by local business groups who said the visa ban would stymie economic development as many Canadian companies begin expressing interest in opening manufacturing facilities in upstate New York.

“While suspension of these visa programs is generally a negative for economic growth, it was especially important that Canadians not be included, given the high degree of integration between our two economies,” said Garry Douglas, President of the North Country Chamber of Commerce.

“The bottom line is that the availability of these visas to Canadians has helped to create thousands of manufacturing jobs here and will now continue to do so,” he added.

The visa restrictions, which the administration dubbed an “American first recovery” to put American citizens to the front of the line for jobs amid mass unemployment from the coronavirus crisis, were met with criticism by many tech CEOs.

Tech firms including Apple, Microsoft and Amazon said the decision would stop them form recruiting talent needed to build critical infrastructure, calling the move “short-sighted.”

The new edict extends visa restrictions that were introduced at the height of the coronavirus crisis and could free up as many as 525,000 jobs for Americans between now and the end of 2020, a senior administration official said Monday.

More than 21 million people have been left unemployment by the pandemic which has shuttered large parts of the US economy, according to May data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.