Presidential Support

Earlier in 2014, for instance, President Barack Obama told CNN that he was flexible on immigration and might not insist that illegal immigrants be placed immediately on a path to citizenship if Republicans were willing to give undocumented workers something short of it, such as work permits, and not ban them from ever pursuing citizenship.

If Obama is willing to make a deal, it will be hard for Democrats and labor unions to say no. After all, they signed off last year on the Senate bill, which would have increased the number of H-1B high-tech visas from 65,000 a year — with 20,000 additional visas available to foreign graduate students studying in the United States — to a figure between 115,000 and 180,000, depending on the needs of the market. The bill also would have allowed foreigners who obtain doctoral degrees in science, technology or engineering to apply immediately for permanent residence, allowing them to stay in the country indefinitely and apply to become citizens. And the bill would have increased the number of unskilled, seasonal H-2B visas for hotel, resort and restaurant employees by exempting workers who come back year after year from the current cap of 66,000.

The bill also aimed to make it easier for farmers to bring in more guest workers, loosening application rules and setting an annual cap of 112,333 workers, significantly more than the typical inflow of agricultural guest workers under the current visa program. And the cap would greatly expand in future years.

Although the Labor Department slashed the number of high-tech and seasonal hotel and restaurant workers allowed to enter the country after the 2008 financial crisis, the numbers have been creeping back up. For high-tech

workers, Labor this year certified more jobs than it did in fiscal 2007 — 768,091 compared to 728,269 — although not all of those positions were filled because of the nationwide cap on H-1B visas.

Seasonal hotel and restaurant work visas have been slower to come back. Labor certified 254,615 positions in fiscal 2007 and only 80,838 this year. The nationwide cap also prevented employers from filling all those jobs.

Meanwhile, Labor continued to certify more positions for agricultural workers through the recession and beyond. It approved 76,814 positions in fiscal 2007, and 91,995 in this fiscal year.