The Migration Industry and the H‐2 Visa in the United States: Employers, Labour Intermediaries, and the State

Abstract

Research on the migration industry has demonstrated the wide variety of roles played by private actors in international migration. However, so far little of this work has attempted to quantitatively measure the size and composition of these industries within particular migration schemes. Using the case of the H‐2 temporary working visa in the US, this article looks to better understand the prevalence, impact, and dynamics of the private labour intermediaries that offer services to US employers looking to hire workers from abroad. Using data from applications to hire foreign workers made to the US Department of Labor, this article finds that private intermediaries are extensively involved. Their broad inclusion raises questions of public and private authority in the visa programme, as the use of private intermediaries becomes necessary for employers to access and navigate the state institutions that oversee the programme.

Selling a house, staging a dream

“…Over the last decades, research has been done on the development, or consolidation, of a variety of non-state actors that either facilitate or constrain migration flows -sometimes operating on both sides, at different stages. On the 'facilitating' side, research has been done on their role in migrants' legal protection (Barbero, 2019), in access to work permits (Anderson, 2019), in transnational housing investments for retirees (Sloane & Silbersack et al, 2020) and in return migration schemes (Cohen, 2020), among other topics. Less frequently, but crucial for the argument of this paper, research along these lines has been done on transnational real estate agencies (Masterson-Algar, 2016).…”