Self regulating immigration policy- The Prevailing Wage

The contentious debates over immigration have considerably subsided with the onset of the economic decline. Conventional wisdom is that immigration legislation does not normally pass during an economic recession. However, this congressional session may prove to be different given the massive future political advantages at stake for the Democratic Party if they pass any legislation that serves to allow undocumented Latin Americans a path to legal status. With this pressure from his party, President Obama will be faced with a political dilemma. He has thus far managed to garner considerable support from democrats and independents with his cabinet decisions which have been perceived as very intelligent and less ideologically driven.

Unfortunately for Obama, to many political observers the immigration debate is driven by little else than ideology. The restrictionists want tighter border security and massive deportations of illegal workers. While, by and large, many independents have a less conservative outlook with respect to preserving the melting pot status of the United States, but at the same time, preserving the status of middle class workers.

There is no doubt that Obama will have to pass some sort of legislation to legalize illegal immigrants to maintain good graces among members of his own party, but he also must not alienate the independent support he received from unions and other labor-based organizations, many of whom believe that the depression of their wages are at least influenced by foreign labor.

Prevailing Wage

President Obama, however, may have a political escape route as well as a reasonable policy that both sides of the aisle could accept. Tailoring legislation around the enforcement of the Prevailing Wage should serve to allow him the ability to maintain his reputation as non-ideologically driven and perhaps even bolster the perception of him as an intelligent figure, as the immigration debate is widely regarded as an immensely complicated issue, both from a political and a practical standpoint.

The most logical argument among independent voters for less immigration and more enforcement is the undeniable fact that illegal or undocumented workers have a depressing effect in some locations on wages among lower and middle class workers. A clear explanation and diligent campaign for immigration reform centered around the Prevailing Wage will potentially provide an easy to understand policy that can be perceived as an equalizer between native born American workers and the foreign born.

The Prevailing Wage is a wage that is arrived at by the Department of Labor by conducting surveys across all occupational job titles in all geographic locations. An incentive based immigrant visa program that requires individual workers to earn at least the Prevailing Wage before being issued permanent residence, coupled with strict employer sanctions against those employers who fail to pay it can serve as a self-regulating immigration policy that will also take away the advantages employers currently have in hiring foreign labor just for the sake of underpaying them.

Gabriel Jack, partner in the law firm of Muston & Jack, a Silicon Valley based immigration law firm, says that he sees the program work very effectively in the current H-1B program whereby nonimmigrant workers who report earning less than the Prevailing Wage are routinely denied visa extensions. He feels that it is a policy that can easily be transferred to any Guest Worker Program or Immigrant Visa program. “If you couple the policy of refusing immigrant visas to workers who earn less than the Prevailing Wage with sanctions imposed against employers who fail to pay it, you largely do away with the primary problem we experience with illegal immigration- the depression of wages. The other arguments espoused by many of the far right conservatives who speak out against immigration reform seem to be based on maintaining some sort of “social fabric” within the United States, and I think the majority of people in this country see beyond that argument and recognize that it is in our economic as well as our social interest to reform the immigration laws based on reasonable policy. Most people, especially the younger generations, recognize that the United States has already evolved into a multi-cultural and multi-racial society and that we’re stronger for it.