NEW YORK, July 8 (Reuters) - It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago many American were worried about a wave of aspiring immigrants. The recession has proved a more effective solution to the problem than miles of walls and an army of over-zealous border officials.
Illegal crossings from Mexico are at their lowest level since the 1970s and U.S. companies no longer have to grapple with unrealistically low quotas to bring in skilled foreigners.
But this is clearly just a lull. With Obama nudging immigration back on the nation’s agenda, the need for overhauling the current policy is as obvious as ever.
A report published today by the Council on Foreign Relations makes a convincing case that America’s immigration laws have become a competitive liability. The inflexibility of border and immigration rules threatens to hamper U.S. growth once the economy crawls back from recession.
As the United States has tightened its rules post-9/11, rival nations have been taking full advantage — nabbing more of the world’s most highly desirable workers. “The US needs to worry as much about attracting good immigrants as keeping the bad ones out,” says the report, which was headed by former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former Clinton White House chief of staff Thomas “Mack” McLarty.
America’s current cap on skilled immigration is appropriate only for the deepest recession. Since the September 2001 attacks, the United States has halved the number of H-1B visas available to just 85,000. As recently as 2007 they tended to sell out faster than U2 concerts. Even Google found they could get only half the visas the company asked for in 2008.
Frustration with the H-1B cap appears to have been behind Microsoft’s decision to establish a research center across the border in Vancouver in 2007 rather than expanding in Washington state.
After years of ranting from anti-immigration zealots like CNN’s Lou Dobbs, few Americans see the upside to letting in foreign workers. Yet many of America’s corporate giants — including Google Inc
Immigrants and foreign students account for more than half the scientific researchers in the United States and in 2006 received 65 percent of computer science PhDs. Taking such people for granted or abusing them will eventually backfire.
America now has a window of opportunity to put things right before demand for skilled labor picks up. To keep up with other industrial nations it will need to move fast.
The European Union is working on a “blue card” that will give talented foreigners the right to work in any member country. Canada now has a points system that identifies foreign workers likely to make the greatest economic contribution. Australia, New Zealand and Britain have followed Canada’s lead. Unlike the United States, they have not put a ceiling on the number of workers that can be admitted under these systems.
China and South Korea too are becoming more interested in attracting immigrants, the Council on Foreign Relations says. The Obama administration, while making some positive noises, has not yet responded to the challenge. Despite modest efforts to trim the unnecessarily time-consuming background checks on foreign scientists and engineers, he has yet to lay out a vision on high-skilled immigration.
After decades of taking its pick of the world’s best talent, the United States has become complacent. The country still boasts most of the world’s finest universities, innovative companies and a most appealing culture. But America will face ever steeper competition for the brightest and the best. A more welcoming immigration policy is vital if America wants to stay on top.
(Editing by Martin Langfield)
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Smart immigrants will help US prosper
Posted by: Christopher Swann
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employer background checks…
I enjoy reading your blog on A Dramatic New Guardian Ad Litem Rule in Ohio | Ohio Family Law Blog. I will surely pop by again….
- Posted by employer background checksShame on Christopher Swann! He could have just easily presented an article with the headline “Smart Americans will Help U.S. Prosper”, but he didn’t. So out of touch Reuters is! So willing to sell-out Reuters is!
- Posted by Common Sense- When Americans are not allowed to work and replaced by H1Bs, foreclosures rise and automobiles don’t get purchased.
- The H1B and L1 visa programs have been corrupted by Indian body shops and give companies the legal authority to discriminate against Americans of all races.
- American IT pros demand the right to compete for high-tech jobs in our own country.
- Indian, Inc., Desi bodyshops, and American tech companies have been using the visas to BYPASS American workers by using illegal discriminatory hiring practices.
- S.887 will require American companies to allow AMERICANS to compete for high-tech jobs and to stop the H1B bodyshops’ bogus claims that the reason 95% of their employees are Indian is because they can’t find any Americans with skills.
- American corporations have been using the visa laws to recruit visa workers instead of Americans because they increase the profit that the CEOs get — there is no benefit to the consumer (which is the taxpayer because most H1Bs are employed on government contracts).
- The DOJ is pursuing CRIMINAL charges against the Vision Systems bodyshop, and Desi recruiters will face JAIL TIME for FRAUD.
- CEOs and CIOs will go to jail once the DOJ and DOL find out about all the IMMIGRATION SCAMS, FALSE DOCUMENTATION, FALSIFIED EXPERIENCE and other FRAUD along with the EEOC violations that have been going on in IT in this whole outsourcing/offshoring/inshoring/hire-an ybody-but-an-American scam.
- Posted by Common Sense[...] of the report rollout at the CFR, an interview with Governor Bush, coverage/commentary here and here, and an oped and critically acclaimed book on immigration by task force director Edward Alden [...]
- Posted by Finally, the Good Kind of Bipartisanship | Podium PunditsMicrosoft cofounder Bill Gates told Congress last year U.S. companies “face a severe shortfall of scientists and engineers with expertise to develop the next generation of breakthroughs. If we don’t reverse these trends, our competitive advantage will erode.”
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When it comes to employment, don’t believe a word that comes out of the mouth of Bill Gates or any other senior executive in the high-tech industry. Their goal is to create the impression that there’s a shortage of skilled professionals here in the U.S. in order to further inflate the number of H-1B visa workers allowed into the country. Companies like Microsoft bring immigrant workers into the US on H-1B visas and pay them a fraction of what an American worker would make. These workers are totally dependent on their employer to stay in the country; if they complain about wages they are simply terminated and have to go back home. It’s all an act by the high tech industry to increase profits at the expense of the American worker.
- Posted by CodeCorrectorheck, I could not even land a post-doc in my field of study
So I had to become an entry-level programmer-analyst working for some third rate shitty company which paid me 42K
BTW, the typical postdoc in my field was paying 30K back then
Why bother with PhD ?
- Posted by angry dudeEven after you get your PhD you will be abused for a few more years. There’s a high probability that, instead of a cushy research job in the private sector or a tenure-track post in academia, you’ll find yourself going through a couple more post-doc (indentured graduate student) positions, and then, if you’re lucky, you may get a series of adjunct positions, and may need to commute between 2 or 3 universities to make enough at that to make ends meet.
Start reading here and work forward to see the pattern in full:
- Posted by jgohttp://www.kermitrose.com/econ1996.html
“I am a US citizens Physics PhD…”
Dear Physics PhD student,
perhaps you should know that US universities use PhD grad students as cheap labor to work on their professors research grants - a compelte analogy to H1Bs in the corporate world
- Posted by angry dudeAfter you are done with your PhD they can’t exploit you anymore (I mean they have to pay you more than 1000$ a month for working days and night in the lab) so they just kick you out and bring in another sucker from China, India or Russia (actually Russians wised up long time ago - I was the last sucker in my department to get an Ivy League Physics PhD and no job offer)
Good luck with your job search - you will definitely need it
PhD in Physics, Ivy League, 1998
In response to Walter.
That is actually the point. The first part of my article points out that the recession has masked the problem. This is why the quota has not been filled.
The Vancouver research center was set up in 2007 when getting an H1B was rather hard.
Thanks for your comment.
- Posted by Christopher SwannThis article seems to have conveniently over-looked the fact that the quota for h-1bs was not filed in 2009, there are still 20,000 slots available.
There the assertion that msft opened a lab in Vancouver out of frustration with the h1b makes little sense.
Google could also get more h1bs, if they wanted.
- Posted by walterbyrdOur educational system may leave a lot to be desired, David, but that doesn’t account for why the legions of experienced U.S. programmers have been laid off. And I don’t believe that we wouldn’t be educating plenty of qualified IT pros right now if the generation that came up in the mid-nineties through today hadn’t seen the instability their parents’ generation faced as IT workers and said, “No way!” Now it’s a vicious cycle: young people won’t enter IT-related fields because they see that corporate America, assisted by our government, is perfectly willing to sell tech workers out, and corporate America turns around to our government and says, “Look! There aren’t enough qualified engineers and programmers to fill our needs!”
- Posted by GretchenOver the past 10 years the ever increasing reliance
- Posted by Davidon immigrant labor for science and technical professions
has lead to increased age discrimination in the workforce
and to a complete eroding of the emphasis on having
a competitive educational system. I oppose any further
use of this crutch. It is time to develop a more reasonable educational system for the U.S. All of the
“reforms” of the past 20 years have been counterproductive.
The H-1B wave is drawing on people who have been educated more effectively in science and technology at an early age. The current culture in the U.S. devalues science and technology. It does so by treating everyone in school equally and slowing down the talented people to perform at a lower level. What sense does this make then, to go ahead and import people who have not been so handicapped.
All right, guys, I know you’re frustrated with this pro-foreign labor corporate propaganda, but racist language and name-calling just reinforces the impression that only bigots and ignoramuses who don’t deserve a job oppose outsourcing and H-1B. There’s plenty of valid information to counter this kind of one-sided, ill-considered editorializing. Let’s focus on that and keep it civil so our points get across.
- Posted by GretchenI am a US citizens Physics PhD (5 months left) and have seen many US trained students return to their home countries due to lack of a job, i.e. visa problems. Now each US trained PhD student takes from $250K to $500K in direct funds, this doesn’t include facilities, equipment, etc.. Almost always thees students are paid for using US tax payer or US corporate funds. It serves my personal interests best that these foreign students are sent back to their home countries. Does it really serve the US when the best and brightest from other countries are trained and paid for and then sent back?
- Posted by Tom