Nicole Durkin · July 2013
81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1294 (2013)
In the summer of 2011, 400 foreign students working in the United States through the Department of State’s Summer Work Travel (“SWT”) program went on strike at a Pennsylvania Hershey’s factory to protest their wages and working conditions. The strike drew national attention to longstanding problems with the management and oversight of SWT employers, prompting the Department of State to impose new regulations. Those new regulations, however, did not go far enough. This Note proposes more comprehensive reforms that are modeled on the statutory and regulatory framework of the H-1B and H-2B programs—two other programs that permit foreign individuals to temporarily work in the United States. First, it proposes regulations that better protect the wages and working conditions of SWT workers. Second, it argues that Congress should amend the Immigration Nationality Act to transfer the oversight and enforcement of those regulations from the Department of State to the Department of Labor. To accomplish this transfer, this Note proposes that labor attestation be implemented in the SWT context, which would require employers of SWT students to attest to the Department of Labor that they will comply with program regulations and would subject those employers to fines and penalties for violations of those regulations.
