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University needs to hire non-Americans to coach tennis, it claims
Purdue University plans to use a foreign worker H-1B visa to hire an assistant tennis coach, according to a publicly available listing.
Though this visa is intended for highly-skilled, difficult to find hires, Purdue is also looking to fill a staff therapist role for non-American workers.
The assistant women’s tennis coach will earn between $52,000 to $78,000 according to the job listing. Meanwhile, the staff therapist can earn nearly $100,000.
The job listing drew criticism from an immigration expert who spoke to The College Fix via a phone interview.
The purpose of the visa is to “allow the American institutions, businesses, and academics to access people with unique skills, highly specialized skills that you could not just go out and find easily in this country,” Ira Mehlman told The Fix.
He regularly writes and researches policy for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Mehlman said he expects Purdue could easily find Americans to find these job openings listed by Purdue.
The immigration expert said the H-1B visa program is open to abuse by employers.
“If you’re here on an H-1B Visa, it’s not impossible but it’s much more complicated to move from one employer to another,” he said. “So, it gives the employers greater control. Also, the law of supply and demand says that the more people you have who apply to certain jobs the less you’re going to have to pay them.”
Purdue’s media relations team and its athletics department did not respond to email and phone requests for comment in the past several weeks. The Fix asked what steps had been taken to recruit Americans to fill the job roles.
Pro-Immigration USA also did not respond to requests for comment via email and phone call about the use, and potential abuse, of H-1B visas.
Governor Mike Braun’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether Purdue should be allowed to use foreign worker visas to hire tennis coaches and staff therapists, as well as what role his office might see for H-1Bs in complementing Indiana’s workforce.
Braun’s counterpart in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, recently announced a freeze on the use of the visas by government entities, including public universities.
Purdue campuses have regularly used the foreign worker visa program to fill jobs that ostensibly it cannot fill with Americans.
The main campus in West Lafayette said it planned to hire data scientists and other STEM jobs with non-American citizens.
Another campus, Purdue Northwest, planned to hire a business marketing professor for $127,000 per year, as The Fix previously reported.
The posting drew criticism from Andrew Ireland, a Republican state representative.
“Does anyone seriously believe no American in the Chicago area can teach marketing for $127,500 a year,” he asked on X. “The same university even has a PHD program for marketing students.”
