Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and 12 other attorneys general support a proposed federal rule that would raise the salaries of certain immigrant workers.

The U.S. Department of Labor issued the proposed rule in late March. In a press release, the department said that the rule would “modernize the existing methodology for determining prevailing wage levels in the permanent labor certification, H-1B, H-1B1, and E-3 visa programs.”

Under current law, U.S. employers seeking to hire foreign workers through visa programs must pay employees at least the “prevailing wage” for the industry they are being hired for. 

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According to an analysis from the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonprofit studying immigration and trade, the new rule would price high-skilled foreign workers out of the labor market by raising their salaries up to 33 percent more than US workers. 

This proposed change comes after a newly implemented policy that requires employers to pay a one-time $100,000 fee when hiring H-1B workers living outside the U.S.

A letter issued by the coalition of 13 states lead by Rokita argues that current wage levels for workers in visa programs allow employers to undercut American workers by offering low salaries to immigrant workers instead of hiring domestically.
 
In a press release, Rokita said, “The existing H-1B program too often enables employers to import cheap foreign labor, displacing U.S. workers and suppressing wages.” 

However, Professor Huanan Xu with the Leighton School of Business and Economics at IU South Bend said studies have shown H-1B workers complement the work of native-born employees instead of replacing them.  

“If we push these foreign workers away, we will not see a replacement by native workers,” Xu said. “We will see that the entire high-skilled labor pool will just shrink instead, and the productivity will decline, and that harms everyone.” 

Xu said that policies discouraging talented workers from coming to the U.S. will hurt the country’s economy and global standing in the tech and financial industries.  

“If those opportunities are shut down in the long run, that's a great loss to the overall competitiveness for the US in the global market, and it's a great loss to the economic strength and to the way how we can promote innovation in this country,” Xu said.  

The public comment period on the proposed rule ended last week.