L03 Recruiting Foreign Nationals for U.S. Employment

The range of positions filled by foreign nationals is far reaching, ranging from professional sports, to tech, agriculture, seasonal resorts, engineers and health care professionals. Anyone who has worked in a major hospital or medical center is aware of the richness of diversity on medical staffs. Some are second-generation, and some become U.S. citizens. The starters, those who emigrated from other countries, began with a visa.

An example is on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where many seasonal jobs as landscapers and staff at resorts were filled by Jamaicans who were allowed to enter the U.S. and work on H-2 visa (temporary workers). The government implemented requirements that limited the number of visas in various categories. A part of the rationale was a projection that U.S. citizens could fill the void. That did not occur, as here wasn’t a surfeit of people willing to work that hard for the wages paid in view of the cost of living on the Cape. Some businesses were forced to curtail services and hours. Some resorted to recruiting in Puerto Rico, as the residents are U.S. citizens. Similar situations played out in many parts of the country.

The important point to note here is that without immigration and visas, many jobs in the U.S. would go unfilled – from harvesting crops to surgeons in operating rooms. In the next section we will look more into the details of visa programs that enable foreign nationals to work in the U.S.