{"id":32742,"date":"2025-07-02T14:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T14:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32742\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T14:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T14:04:06","slug":"san-antonio-businessman-calls-for-federal-work-visa-reform-says-process-is-inefficient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32742\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio businessman calls for federal work visa reform, says process is \u2018inefficient\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO<\/strong> \u2013 In Texas, more than 51 percent of workers building homes, businesses and infrastructure are immigrants, according to data from the Associated General Contractors of America.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Other states also heavily depend on immigrant labor in the construction sector. But concerns about immigration policies and deportations are affecting families within the industry.<\/p>\n

Thomas Freund, owner of Comfort Air Engineering and Primo Plumbing in San Antonio, said labor shortages have plagued skilled trades for over 30 years. <\/p>\n

Freund advocates for changes to federal laws to simplify the process for companies to hire unskilled workers via visa programs.<\/p>\n

Under the EB-3 visa program<\/a>, Freund can hire unskilled workers, but he notes the process involves significant red tape. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are limits on the number of workers a company can hire, strict criteria, and extensive paperwork,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Freund describes the current visa program as inefficient, costly and overly complicated for the construction industry.<\/p>\n

As a member of the National Board of the American Subcontractors Association, Freund<\/a> is pushing for federal reforms. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a long road. We need to remove emotion and optics from the discussion and focus on the work we need to accomplish,\u201d Freund said.<\/p>\n

During recent crises, such as the statewide freeze, Texas made exceptions for certain industries, but Freund stresses that substantial federal law changes are necessary to address ongoing labor challenges.<\/p>\n

The National Board of the American Subcontractors Association represents roughly 300,000 members nationally and 250 members in the San Antonio area. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 In Texas, more than 51 percent of workers building homes, businesses and infrastructure are immigrants,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,9886,17834,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-32742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-construction","10":"tag-migrants","11":"tag-san-antonio","12":"tag-sanantonio","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114784022211330532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}