What's missing from Trump's immigration plan: A state guest worker program

The White House on Sunday unveiled a set of immigration priorities that it wants incorporated into any congressional deal to protect the roughly 700,000 "Dreamers" who could be affected by the president's decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Unfortunately, the president's proposals — which include stepped-up border enforcement, increased deportations, and a crackdown on employers who hire illegal aliens – will only exacerbate the real problem underlying our immigration debates: The economy's demand for labor exceeds the current supply of legal migrants. An enforcement regime that reduces the number of undocumented workers in the U.S. without also expanding the number of guest workers will almost certainly lead to falling production and rising prices in agriculture, construction, landscaping, and other industries that depend on such workers.

According to recent studies, illegal aliens account for over half of all hired workers in U.S. agriculture, 15 percent of construction workers, and 9 percent of jobs in both manufacturing and services. In many cases, the undocumented workers fill jobs that U.S. citizens simply will not take, particularly in the current low-unemployment environment.

If an agreement on DACA materializes, Washington leaders should seize the rare moment of bipartisanship to combine border enforcement with a new guest worker program that allows each state to sponsor migrants needed by local industries. America's current guest worker visa programs, such as the H2A for agricultural workers and the H2B for non-agricultural seasonal workers, are woefully inadequate. Both programs are saddled with cumbersome procedures and long lead times that deter employers who cannot predict their labor needs far enough in advance to commit to sponsoring the visas.

Moreover, the H2B program is capped at 66,000 visas a year. Although the administration authorized an additional 15,000 visas in July of this year, that still was not sufficient to keep up with demand. Roughly 120,000 visas had been requested. Congressional action on immigration is consistently stymied by the inability of legislators to agree on the "right" number of migrants for the nation.