“When people say they should go to the back of the line and wait – there isn’t any line for them to realistically get into,” explains Elise Healy, who leads the business immigration practice of Spencer, Crain, Cubbage, Healy and McNamara. Healy helps businesses, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, navigate the murky waters of immigration law when they need to hire foreign nationals.

“Visa quotas were last set in 1990 when we had 200 million people and an economy that was two-thirds the size it is today,” she says. “Our immigration visa categories focus almost exclusively on highly skilled, highly educated people. And there are only 140,000 visas even for those people. There are only 5,000 visas reserved for workers at the other end of the scale.

“Today, we really don’t even have a visa category for the vast majority of workers that are needed in agriculture, construction and areas where there are not a lot of skills or experience required,” she says. Even the burdensome H2-A program meant for seasonal ag laborers is limited to only 60,000 new visas a year – and that program requires an elaborate labor certification process with ever changing regulations.

To those who say it can’t be true that Americans won’t take the jobs occupied in many cases by undocumented workers, think again. Healy has more than one client – a dairy farm in particular – that cannot hire enough workers even when paying more than minimum wage. Apparently it’s hot, dirty work and sad to say, the employer says too often the American-born workers won’t show up after they see what’s in store for them.

She also has a manufacturing firm that has such a problem hiring enough workers the owners are considering moving it to Mexico – where the workers are that can’t get here legally.

“But you can’t move farms and ranches,” Healy point out. ‘If you’re trying to comply with the law, they don’t make it easy.”

One thing that has changed under the Obama administration is a dramatic increase in worksite enforcement, says Healy.

“The immigration service is sending out people to verify statements made for visas. The fraud detection unit will them comb through these reports and decide if there is a basis for investigation among them. They ask to see the person who signed the documents, they want to meet the employee and see payroll documents,” she explains.

While there is some political pressure for comprehensive immigration reform, Healy says positive steps could be taken short of a path to citizenship.

“A path to status could be considered – not necessarily a green card,” she suggests. “A blue card for temporary workers with no convictions who have paid their taxes and speak English that would allow them to come work for 10 months is one interim solution that we could look at until the actual Act could be reformed. Employers are looking for answers. In the meantime, our economy is the loser and so are agriculture and landowners.”