Migrants can solve our labor crisis if we can match them with jobs

It’s practically impossible to look at the news these days without reading headlines about the “migrant crisis.” Reports tell of asylum seekers from Venezuela crowding hotels and shelters in New York and Chicago. Politicians call for a response to the droves of people crossing the Southern border on foot.

Concurrently, the U.S. is experiencing a different crisis: a labor shortage. The U.S. workforce collapsed during the pandemic and has yet to recover, with 9.5 million open jobs and only 6.5 million unemployed workers. The food services, retail, manufacturing, and construction industries have been hit especially hard. Consumers feel the effects through inflation and scarcity of services such as childcare and healthcare.

The irony is hard to miss: The multitudes of migrants represent a supply of workers ready and willing to alleviate the shortage.

Unfortunately, there is currently no mechanism for matching migrants with surplus jobs. The closest thing is the H-2B visa, which allows a U.S. employer to bring a foreign national for a temporary, non-agricultural job when there are not enough U.S. workers available.  

But the H-2B program is ill-equipped to meet current demands due to its requirements and limitations. For example, the program requires the migrant to have a job offer at the time of application. Connecting with potential employers or employees abroad is difficult.  

Furthermore, the application process alone is enough to deter many employers from even considering hiring from abroad. The employer, or “petitioner,” must fill-out paperwork, pay a $460 processing fee, and possibly hire an immigration attorney to assist in navigating the complicated system. The undertaking is even less justifiable for small businesses and employers seeking to fill roles that do not require special skills or qualifications.    

Also, H-2B visas are only available to people from certain countries. Mexico, Haiti and Honduras are on the list, but other countries experiencing high rates of expatriation are notably missing, including Venezuela, Syria, and Afghanistan. And Congress caps the number of H-2B visas granted each year at 66,000. In comparison, 800,000 people applied for asylum and 2.3 million people were apprehended at the border in 2022.  

Perhaps most damning is the H-2B visa’s one-year limit on the migrant's stay. One year is not enough time to plug the gaps in our workforce. The obligation to return to one’s country after just one year is personally disruptive and, in some cases, impossible, depending on the migrant’s reason for leaving.

In light of the current labor market and immigration climate, the H-2B requirements should be revamped or a new visa program should be created. We need a system dedicated to efficiently processing migrants who are willing to fill key jobs, without requiring that they have a job offer before applying and return after a year.

For example, DHS can compile a list of critical jobs and grant migrants a visa conditioned on their obtaining one of the listed jobs within a certain number of months of arriving in the U.S. The visa may require that migrants continue to work in a listed role, with no more than a specified time between jobs. Noncompliance would result in the visa's expiration. 

Of course, there is a risk that a visa-holder will not seek or secure a job once in the U.S. and will remain nonetheless. But that’s no worse than the status quo. Currently, visa-holders routinely overstay their visas and migrants make their way across the border without documentation. It is better that migrants enter the system, have the chance to work, and pay taxes.

Another advantage to a job-focused program is its potential to relieve the strained asylum system. Recently, we’ve witnessed a record number of migrants gain entry to the U.S. by claiming asylum. Asylum-seekers must apply for protection within one year of arriving in the country, but in the meantime, they are not permitted to work. And they may have to wait longer than a year, as agencies are facing a backlog of two million applications.

Many of these migrants could achieve their goals by going through a simpler process in which they must merely demonstrate a willingness to fill a key job, rather than proving fear of persecution or torture in their home countries, which is required to seek asylum.

Embracing willing foreign workers is key to competing in the global market. This month the Congressional Budget Office released a report stating that immigration will contribute $7 trillion to the U.S. economy over the next decade. The effect can be accelerated by creating a path for migrants to efficiently and lawfully join the U.S. workforce.  

Economist Paul Krugman said that a growing foreign-born labor force is a major reason the U.S. economy has performed better than many other advanced countries in recent years. Like the United States, countries such as Japan and China are facing labor shortages, largely due to aging populations and low birth rates. But immigrants can make up for the shrinkage and backfill vacancies left by older generations.

It’s time we see the “migrant crisis” as a boon rather than a burden. By reforming the H-2B visa or creating a new program to efficiently process migrants willing to fill key jobs, we can ameliorate the labor shortage to the benefit of migrants, U.S. businesses, and U.S. consumers alike. It would be a shame to squander the opportunity just because of politics or bureaucratic inflexibility.

Erin Caldwell is an attorney based in Seattle.