fascinating report by American University Associate Professor of Law Janie Chuang reveals how "the legal categorization of au pairs as ‘cultural exchange participants’ is strategically used to sustain—and disguise—a government-created domestic worker program to provide flexible, in-home childcare for upper-middle-class families at below-market prices."
And that’s just for families who skirt the law. Many more just flout it. More than a third of all domestic workers in the U.S. are non-citizens, and a substantial percentage of them are undocumented. Well-to-do families solve childcare problems by hiring and housing undocumented workers, working them more hours than is legal, and paying them under the table.
Yet another place where 'liberal' policies really mean an environment where the affluent get to do what they want, legal or not while regular folk get screwed. It's all so progressive.  But to be fair some kids are just more important to the nation's future than others.  If the little lightbringers don't get their special snowflake development then who will fight for child care for everyone when they're grown up?

More here.