Feb
18
Written by:
host
2/18/2009 3:08 PM
In a move that angered residents across Florida, as well as the state’s Congressional delegation, CYVSA, the largest HVAC contractor in Mexico, received permission from both the state of Florida and the U.S. Department of Labor last year in a bid to bring workers in from Mexico to install the air conditioning and heating ducts - even though there are more than a thousand unemployed sheet metal workers in the Miami area.
CYVSA International, one of the largest construction firms in Mexico, applied for the right to bring in foreign workers under an immigration provision most Americans know very little about -- the H2-B Visa program.
H2B visas are only supposed to be issued for seasonal work and only when there are no American workers available. Both the State of Florida and the U.S. Department of Labor certified there were no Americans available, even though they claimed to try and recruit the workers during a ten day period.
In an email to the I-Report team at CBS Channel 4 in Miami, the president of CYVSA acknowledged that his company has brought workers in from Mexico. And although his company was certified to bring the workers in under H2B visas, he denied actually using those visas. He refused to say what visa program the company was using and refused to provide the number of foreign workers brought in by CYVSA as well as what they were being paid.
Reporters from Channel 4 tracked down the foreign workers who were being housed at a nearby apartment complex. Based on the interviews given by those workers, as well as interviews with others at the job site, it appears the Mexican workers are being paid less than half what the American workers were receiving.
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