A New Way Forward for Employment-Based Immigration: The Bridge Visa

States.14 Finally, the bridge visa could be designed to serve To complement the bridge visa, seasonal/short-term as a mechanism for granting a path to permanent visas, and direct-to-permanent pathways, the United resident status to workers who are already in the States could also pilot a small points-based immi- United States and contributing to the U. [...] Department of Labor to ensure that tive and survey data to allow for the assessment of the offered wage is commensurate with wages paid the program’s efficacy and to compare the outcomes to other workers in similar occupations in the same MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 10 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 11 A NEW WAY FORWARD FOR EMPLOYMENT-BASED IMMIGRATION: THE BRIDGE VISA A NEW WAY FORWARD FOR EMPLOYM. [...] The work of this document the recruitment process and apply to the group could build on the experience of the Migra- Department of Labor for certification, a prerequisite tion Advisory Committee in the United Kingdom, for sponsoring a foreign worker. [...] Such policies to similarly situated workers within the company should still include wage requirements along the and at similar companies, and that would review lines of today’s prevailing wage requirement to employers’ recruitment methods for recent hires to ensure the bridge visa is not used to hire foreign ensure the company was seeking and seriously con- workers who undercut the wages of the do. [...] To make such a policy workable, the re- to submit the same information repeatedly to the quirements set for recruiters to register and be avail- Department of Labor, USCIS, and the State Depart- MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 16 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE | 17 A NEW WAY FORWARD FOR EMPLOYMENT-BASED IMMIGRATION: THE BRIDGE VISA A NEW WAY FORWARD FOR EMPLOYMENT-BASED IMMIGRATION: THE BRIDGE VISA ment.