In 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor changed its rules for the minimum wage that someone in the country on a H-2B visa can be paid. Last week an U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against business groups who challenged the DoL?s rule change. The employer associations claimed that the DoL had no right to impose wages on employers, but the court found that, because the new minimum required by the DoL was the region?s prevailing wage for that type of work, the DoL was not imposing a new requirement, but rather enforcing an existing one. The rule change is aimed at fixing the incentive for employers to hire more immigrants because it is cheaper while at the same time forces employers to pay a reasonable wage to the immigrants that are hired.
See "Court Okays Labor Department Rule: Guestworkers Must Earn Prevailing Wages", Michelle Chen, The Huffington Post, February 16, 2014