来源：《华尔街日报》
原文见报日期：2022年2月8日
The Department of Homeland Security is exercising its discretionary authority to issue 20,000 more H-2B visas for seasonal workers in the coming months.
美国国土安全部将行使其自由裁量权，在未来几个月向季节性工人再发放2万个H-2B签证。
The Immigration and Nationality Act caps H-2B visas at 66,000 each fiscal year, split evenly between the first and second halves. But DHS may issue additional visas if it determines, after consulting the Labor Department, that employers can’t fill seasonal positions with willing, qualified American workers.
《移民与国籍法》规定，每个财政年度的H-2B签证数量不得超过6.6万个，上半年和下半年各占一半。但是，如果国土安全部在咨询了劳工部之后，认定雇主无法用愿意工作的合格美国工人填补季节性岗位，它可能会发放额外的签证。
Immigration restrictionists say employers could attract more American workers if they raised wages, but they need to get out of their think tanks and talk to employers. Few Americans are willing to relocate every few months for physically demanding seasonal jobs such as cleaning rooms at Rocky Mountain ski resorts, no matter how much employers pay. So employers year after year rely on the H-2B program.
移民限制主义者表示，如果雇主提高工资，就可以吸引更多的美国工人，但限制主义者需要跳出自己的智库，与雇主交谈。很少有美国人愿意每隔几个月就搬家去做一些体力活，比如在落基山滑雪胜地打扫房间，不管雇主付多少钱。因此，雇主年复一年地依赖H-2B计划。
Demand for visas exceeded the cap even before the pandemic, but the mismatch has grown as millions of U.S. workers have left the labor force, enabled by generous welfare payments. As of Dec. 1, the Labor Department certified that employers needed 65,717 H-2B workers for the first half of the 2022 fiscal year. Last month the Administration said it had received 136,555 visa applications from employers for April through September—four times the cap.
在疫情爆发之前，对签证的需求就已经超过了上限，但由于慷慨的福利金，数以百万计的美国工人已经离开了劳动力大军，这种不匹配在疫情爆发后有所增加。截至去年12月1日，劳工部证实，雇主在2022财年上半年需要65717名H-2B工人。上个月，美国政府表示，共收到136555份雇主的4月到9月签证申请，是上限的四倍。
Visas are typically allocated at random, so tough luck to employers that don’t win the lottery. Employers that can’t find workers have to scale back operations or even shut down. American workers then become incidental damage, as a new study by the National Foundation for American Policy shows.
签证通常是随机分配的，所以没有中彩票的雇主运气就不好了。找不到员工的雇主不得不缩减经营规模，甚至关门大吉。美国国家政策基金会的一项新研究显示，美国工人也因此受到了连带伤害。
H-2B visas fell by almost half in fiscal 2020 amid government pandemic restrictions. But with millions of Americans losing jobs during lockdowns, employers that typically hire foreign workers on H-2Bs might have been expected to hire more Americans.
由于政府对疫情的限制，H-2B签证在2020财年下降了近一半。但随着数百万美国人在封锁期间失去工作，通常雇佣外籍H-2B员工的雇主可能会雇佣更多的美国人。
The opposite happened. The economists examined employment trends in labor markets based on their reliance on the H-2B program. They found unemployment rates were significantly higher in labor markets where employers traditionally relied more on the H-2B program. When fewer H-2B visas are issued, U.S. workers also have fewer job opportunities.
情况正好相反。经济学家们根据对H-2B计划的依赖程度，研究了劳动力市场的就业趋势。他们发现，传统上雇主更依赖H-2B计划的劳动力市场，失业率明显更高。当签发的H-2B签证减少时，美国工人的就业机会也会减少。
Americans also pay for the worker shortfall through supply shortages and higher prices. Wonder why hotels no longer change sheets daily? They can’t find enough workers, domestic or foreign. Meantime, hundreds of thousands of able-bodied foreign migrants hungry for jobs are flooding the southern border.
美国人还通过供应短缺和物价上涨的形式为工人短缺付出了代价。想知道为什么酒店不再每天换床单？酒店找不到足够的工人，无论是国内的还是国外的。与此同时，数十万身强力壮、渴望找到工作的外国移民正涌入南部边境。
Congress made a half-hearted effort to address the H-2B visa shortage in the December spending bill by permitting DHS to lift the 66,000 annual cap. The DHS decision to issue 20,000 more visas is a good start, but not nearly enough.
为了解决H-2B签证短缺问题，国会在去年12月的支出法案中做出了半心半意的努力，允许国土安全部取消每年6.6万份的签证上限。国土安全部决定再发放2万份签证是个良好的开端，但还远远不够。
Rather than compromise to fix the nation’s dual immigrant crises—too many illegal migrants and not enough legal foreign workers—Congress keeps punting to the executive branch. It doesn’t want to do tough jobs either.
国会没有妥协解决美国的双重移民危机——太多的非法移民和不够的合法外国工人——而是一直把皮球踢给行政部门。行政部门也不想做艰苦的工作。