Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) isn’t afraid to use Twitter to try to get President Donald Trump’s attention. Indeed, he may have no other choice
Last month, he issued a number of tweets meant for “Whoever monitors twitter at WH for President Trump,” asking for accountability and transparency from the administration, and on Sunday, he addressed the @POTUS Twitter account and asked for help with immigration issues.
If u just saw CBS 60minutes abt ripoff H1B visa program is replacing AmWorkers u shld know my/Durbin bill will correct this injustice
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 20, 2017
As the Hill points out, 60 Minutes ran a report Sunday on the H1B visa program that allows some foreign workers who have “specialty occupations” (people who are highly skilled in the tech, engineering, or medicine fields that help fill America’s skills gap) to live and work in the U.S. The 60 Minutes piece showed some Americans who have had to train foreign workers who eventually took their jobs.
But in legislation introduced earlier this year by Grassley and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the bipartisan duo are trying to reform the visa program, getting rid of the current lottery system that allows 85,000 H1B visas to be disseminated annually and creating a system where foreign students who come to the U.S. for schooling get a priority on obtaining the visas.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced earlier this month that, as of April 3, it will suspend expedited processing for all H1B petitions for up to six months. Trump has said he wants to crack down on visa abuse, but he hasn’t gotten much more specific than that.
Which might be Grassley poked him on Twitter on Sunday.
@POTUS read my previous tweet and thx to Pres Trump for getting on board. REMEMBER we can do somethings bipartisan and H1B is good example
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 20, 2017
Then, Grassley began to ask for a phone call.
@POTUS If u want a real expert on fixing H1B a former staffer of mine just moved to HomelandSecurity Call my office I will tell WHO SHE IS
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 20, 2017
@POTUS If u don’t hv time to call tell SecyKelly to call me
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 20, 2017
@POTUS In other words I’ve been waiting for six yrs for a president interested in fixing H1B and that person has finally arrived/DRAIN SWAMP
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) March 20, 2017
Perhaps one reason Grassley has resorted to asking Trump to call him on Twitter? For the fifth time in eight weekends, Trump spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort, canceling a meeting about veterans’ health care and reportedly playing a round of golf Saturday afternoon after ripping Germany and incorrectly tweeting that the country owes the U.S. and NATO “vast sums of money.”
H/T Gizmodo
