Really, the solution is so simple. Immigrants are coveted by businesses because they can be exploited. Make it more difficult for immigrants to be exploited, and many of the immigration problems solve themselves.
Really, the solution is so simple. Immigrants are coveted by businesses because they can be exploited. Make it more difficult for immigrants to be exploited, and many of the immigration problems solve themselves.
I'll explain.
Take the H1-B visa, designed for skilled, educated workers. Currently, companies bring foreigners to this company who are educated, and then often pay them considerably less than they would have to pay a US Citizen with comparable qualifications, and the immigrant accepts the job. Solution? Allow H1-B visas, but require that immigrants who come on H1-B visas to be paid whatever the local median wages are for that job. Companies are not required to pay US Citizens local median wages. In other words, make it MORE EXPENSIVE to the employer to employ an immigrant rather than LESS EXPENSIVE. If it is less expensive to find a US Citizen to fill the slot, then the employer has no incentive to exploit the immigrant, and the immigrant will not undercut US wages nor take a job that otherwise could have gone to a US Citizen.
Then of course there are the visas designed for low-skill workers, the H-2A and H-2B visas. Employers bring immigrants in to do menial work in illegal conditions - but immigrants are in a bind and don't easily have the ability to alert the authorities to employer abuses. Once again, this is easily rectified by requiring employers to prove that the immigrants they bring in on these visas are being paid local median wages for the jobs, and that they are afforded all of the protections that are required by law for US Citizen workers. If the government were more zealous in seeing that immigrant workers were being treated lawfully by employers (any increased costs could be borne by the employers who request the visas in the first place) then these problems would evaporate.
In addition, anyone who comes over on one of these visas should be required to take some sort of course in their home language or in a language in which they are fluent that apprises them of their rights under their visas and under US law. They should also be easily granted temporary legal status and the ability to work for a different employer should they "whistle-blow" on an employer who is infringing on their rights.
The same sort of approach can be taken with undocumented immigrants already in the country. If there is some sort of simple path to legal status that enables them to legally work, they should be afforded the same protections as any other US worker, namely minimum wage, OSHA standards, unemployment insurance, (the employer should have to pay unemployment insurance for the worker), etc. Perhaps even a guarantee of "median wage" for these immigrants as well, which would actually encourage US Citizens to be preferred.
This would simplify everything enormously. Workers, no matter the nation of origin, no matter their immigration status, should have the same basic rights. Worker exploitation is not acceptable.