Making Nannies ‘Legal’ Can Be Done With Ease : Immigration: Expand the ‘unskilled labor’ visa category to include home care, work that very few Americans will do.

The Zoe Baird controversy, followed closely by Kimba Wood’s “nanny problem” and the subsequent confessions of numerous elected officials have highlighted the deficiencies in U.S. immigration laws and the extent to which they fail to address society’s need for child and elderly care. In fact, the very system that could easily be used to solve the current crisis is structured instead to worsen it.

In 1991 the number of visas allocated to the unskilled labor category was drastically reduced from 40,000 to 10,000 worldwide. The effect of this has been profound, increasing the processing time for applicants in the unskilled worker category, in which all home-care jobs are placed, from about two years to five to seven years.

Under the current system, if you are lucky enough to find the perfect person to take care of your child or elderly parent, and she happens to be here illegally, and you move ahead at full speed to try to get her legalized, she still won’t become legal for at least five years from the time you start the process.

In fact, it is projected that, if the number of visas is not dramatically increased now, the wait will soon be as long as 10 to 15 years. Put another way, by the time the person you want to hire to take care of your baby finally gets her visa, your child will be in high school.

Meanwhile, during the time you are waiting, you are breaking the law because it is illegal, as of November, 1986, to hire an illegal alien; and your employee, to whom you have entrusted the care of your child or elderly parent, can be deported at any time.

Given the existing national crisis in child care, there is no question that the immigration laws must be changed. But how? One possible proposal being considered by the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. could be accomplished within the existing statutory framework. It envisions the establishment of a home-care worker program within the existing unskilled labor category whereby work authorization would be given once the local Department of Labor has certified that there are no American workers available to do the job. The alien worker would then be working legally. The program would require the employer to pay the prevailing wage, all taxes and Social Security. The employee would be permitted to switch employers to do the same type of work without losing employment authorization. At the successful completion of the program, the home-care worker would then become eligible to apply for an immigrant visa that would be taken from an undersubscribed worker category.

But if the immigration laws are changed, won’t this just help illegal aliens take jobs away from American workers? During this time of high unemployment, this would not be a desirable result.

As a point of information, for the vast majority of jobs, including those in the unskilled labor category, an employer can sponsor an alien worker for permanent residency only if the local Department of Labor first certifies that Americans qualified for the position are not available and that the employment of the foreign worker will not adversely affect the work or working conditions of U.S. workers similarly employed. The employer, therefore, cannot even begin the immigration part of the sponsoring process without this certification of unavailability of U.S. workers to do the job.

It has been my experience that, in the area where Zoe Baird lived, American workers, regardless of the pay advertised, do not apply for home child-care and elderly-care jobs. The response to Baird’s ad for a nanny was not at all atypical. She received two responses; one applicant withdrew and the other was unqualified.

There is no question that there is a national child-care and elderly-care crisis. It would be in our national interest to amend the immigration laws to permit home-care workers to work here legally. It isn’t often the case that in helping others, we can also help ourselves.