This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 12th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

States play no serious role in determining how foreign workers get visas to come to the

U.S. In some states, that's a big problem. foreign workers get visas to come to the US.

In some states that's a big problem for employers who need workers.

So why not let states play a bigger role in deciding who comes to the US to work?

Gary Herbert is the Republican governor of Utah,

and he's supporting a proposed state-based worker visa program.

We spoke last week.

What makes Utah different when it comes to the relative red carpet that is rolled out for immigrants?

I think immigration is an emotional issue and we have people on different positions.

It tends to be a little more compassionate on the left and a little more hard line on the right.

In my observation, I think there's concern about rule of law

and securing the borders which you'd think everybody would agree upon. So it's

been a little frustrating to me to see the debate out there and really the Congress

continued to kick the can down the road and not resolve the immigration issue.

I've said before, I think there's been too much emphasis on building a wall or a fence and not enough

emphasis on how do we fix the gate. The gates really where the problem occurs, how people come

and go into our country.

So I think this new proposal where state visas allow the states to say,

we need help in this area of our economy, could be technology, could be

agriculture, could be construction, could be in a variety of

...