According to Fordham Law School Professor Jennifer Gordon, something's got to change.

Over the summer, the unheard of happened: Subcontractors from Jamaica working under H2B visas as cleaners for luxury hotels and condos in Florida staged a strike. It's uncommon for guest workers from other countries to walk off the job, Gordon says. They typically come to the United States to work in low-wage industries to make money to send back home, often not wanting to cause trouble.

“Guest workers … offer something hiring a local worker does not: subservience,” Gordon says in her New York Times op-ed piece, Subcontractor Servitude. “They are tied by law to the employer who sponsored their visas, which means that if they are found too 'difficult' for any reason—including asking that their rights be respected—the employer can effectively deport them and blacklist them from receiving future work visas.”