Margaret Mikyung Lee
Legislative Attorney
Jon O. Shimabukuro
Legislative Attorney
One challenge of immigration law has been to balance the interests of the domestic workforce with employer interests in hiring foreign workers who are not already authorized to work in the United States while preventing the exploitation of foreign workers. There are three main sources of labor protections for foreign workers in the United States: (1) the conditions imposed on employers hiring foreign workers through the Department of Labor (DOL) labor certification/attestation and DHS petition process; (2) federal labor laws stipulating that employers adhere to certain requirements governing wages and other conditions; and (3) worker rights under state and local laws regarding labor, contracts, and torts.
Streamlining and easing certain labor and immigration requirements that are perceived as unnecessarily onerous and insufficiently flexible may benefit certain employers with immediate labor needs. On the other hand, stronger protections for foreign workers may not only guard those workers from exploitation and abuse but may also serve to protect the interests of the domestic workforce by reducing to some employers the attractiveness of hiring foreign workers who are not already authorized to work in the United States. Legislative proposals to reform employmentbased visa programs in the current Congress reflect some of these tensions.
This report will discuss the DOL labor certification/attestation and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) petition process as well as aspects of the applicability of federal labor laws to foreign workers. It will also briefly address state and local laws regarding labor, contract, and torts that sometimes provide foreign workers with additional rights. Federal labor laws that apply regardless of immigration status, including those concerning health and safety and employment discrimination, as well as state occupational certification and licensing requirements are outside the scope of this report.
For a comprehensive look at employment-based immigration and related federal labor policies and programs, see CRS Report RL33977, Immigration of Foreign Workers: Labor Market Tests and Protections, by Ruth Ellen Wasem; CRS Report RL32044, Immigration: Policy Considerations Related to Guest Worker Programs, by Andorra Bruno; CRS Report R42434, Immigration of Temporary Lower-Skilled Workers: Current Policy and Related Issues, by Andorra Bruno; CRS Report R43161, Agricultural Guest Workers: Legislative Activity in the 113th Congress, by Andorra Bruno; CRS Report RL34739, Temporary Farm Labor: The H-2A Program and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Proposed Changes in the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), by Gerald Mayer; and CRS Report RS21186, Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB and Backpay Awards to Undocumented Aliens, by Jon O. Shimabukuro.
Date of Report: September 11, 2013
Number of Pages: 12
Order Number: R43223
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