Apple, Coca Cola, JPMorgan fear Trump's visa policy will harm US economy

Vague and unpredictable Trump administration immigration policies threaten the US economy amid a tightening labour market, CEOs from major American companies have warned.

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Thursday, the Business Roundtable urged a rethink of recent directives from Washington that have thrown the status of workers into doubt and are damaging the recruitment of talent.

"Few (workers) will move their family and settle in a new country if, at any time and without notice, the government can force their immediate departure -- often without explanation," the roundtable said in the letter. "At a time when the number of job vacancies are reaching historic highs due to labour shortages, now is not the time restrict access to talent."

The Business Roundtable represents most of the biggest US companies. The group has criticised the Trump administration before on immigration, while praising the White House for cutting taxes and regulation.

Trump ends 'Dreamer' immigration programme, 800,000 face unsure future

President Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped an Obama-era programme that protects from deportation immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children, delaying implementation until March and giving a gridlocked Congress six months to decide the fate of almost 800,000 young people.

As the so-called Dreamers who have benefited from the five-year-old programme were plunged into uncertainty, business and religious leaders, mayors, governors, Democratic lawmakers, unions, civil liberties advocates and former Democratic President Barack Obama all condemned Trump’s move.

The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, who called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme an unconstitutional overreach by Obama. There will be an “orderly, lawful wind-down,” Sessions said.

Trump later issued a written statement saying that “I do not favour punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognise that we are (a) nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”
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Amid the blaring headlines, routine reports of hate-fueled violence

Last Wednesday, July 19, was something of a busy news day. There was word North Korea was making preparations for yet another provocative missile test. The Supreme Court, in its latest ruling in the controversial travel ban case, said that people from the six largely Muslim countries covered by the immigration enforcement action could enter the U.S. if they had a grandparent here, refusing to overturn a ruling that grandparents qualified as "bona fide relatives." And then, late in the day, President Donald Trump gave a remarkable interview to The New York Times, one that, among other things, laid into Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The day also produced its share of what, sadly, has come to qualify as routine news: A Muslim organization in Sacramento, California, received a package in the mail that included a Koran in a tub of lard; police in Boise, Idaho, identified a teenage boy as the person likely responsible for scratching racist words on a car; in Lansing, Michigan, police launched a search for a suspect in the case of an assault against a Hispanic man. The victim had been found with a note indicating his attacker had been motivated by racial animus.

The specter of hate incidents and crimes — some of them fueled by the nastiness of the 2016 presidential campaign — felt white hot months ago. The issue remained high-profile as several horrific murders — a South Asian immigrant slain in Kansas City, a homeless black man butchered near Times Square in New York — generated outrage and national news coverage.
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Zuckerberg takes on Trump on immigration, calls US a nation of immigrants

Latest News - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to his social network to criticise US President Donald Trump's anti-immigration policies and his plans to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

In his first week in the White House, Trump signed executive orders for the border wall, withholding federal funding from sanctuary cities and blocking refugees from nations like Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

"Like many of you, I'm concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump. We need to keep this country safe, but we should do that by focusing on people who actually pose a threat," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Friday. (Read More)