America finds itself confronting a host of problems -- from environmental crises to reform on Wall Street, Congress has no shortage of pressing issues to tackle. One issue stands out to me, however, as particularly important in the effort to attract America's next generation of global leaders: America needs immigration reform for legal immigrants.
Ever since September 11, 2001, America has been making life extremely difficult for legal immigrants who want to stay in this country, start companies and contribute to the growth of the U.S. economy. In recent years all the focus has been on the 13 million illegal immigrants currently in the country.
From 19th century industrialists like Scottish-American Andrew Carnegie to Yahoo's Jerry Yang, PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi, Google's Sergey Brin, or Harvard Business School's recently nominated dean Nitin Nohria, immigrants continue to occupy important positions of leadership in creating and driving the next generation of American businesses to success. Many foreign students come to the U.S. to study at our great universities and stay to study medicine, science or business in America's leading graduate schools. Yet they are sent back home as their student visas expire. It pains me to see so many of my Harvard Business School students who are sent back to China, India, Africa and many other countries and watch them found dynamic countries there instead of doing so in the U.S.
Leaders who come to America from abroad play a key role in driving companies forward -- they fuse together ideas from different cultures, help to disseminate best practices from across the globe, and import new models of innovation from abroad. Moreover, the multinational business networks that these immigrants bring with them can also enable companies to tap into new supply chains and access customers in previously unreachable markets, key competitive advantages in an increasingly interconnected economy.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who writes frequently about immigration reform, hits the nail on the head when he describes immigration as a key generator of new and innovative ideas, products, and people that infuse and enrich America's business community. Critical outside perspective, along with knowledge of foreign markets and best practices outside our borders, are keys to successfully navigating today's global marketplace.
Politicians would do well to focus on immigration reform for these legal immigrants by expanding the H1b visas for graduates of American universities, rather than mixing these straightforward issues with the highly complex issues like border security and amnesty. Congress needs to pay particular attention to the following core issues in considering immigration reform:
Retaining students.
America's higher education system is unrivaled in attracting the world's top engineers, doctors, lawyers, and businessmen to study at its universities. A reformed system should ensure that those who come to the US to study and earn advanced degrees receive a fast-track to citizenship.
Increasing the number of skilled worker visas.
Increasing the ceiling on the number of H-1B visas for skilled workers ensures that America continues to attract the top set of leaders. A 2006 study by Duke University found that immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States founded 25.3% of all engineering and technology firms over the past decade, generating an estimated $52 billion (in 2005 dollars) in sales and creating 450,000 jobs. Today only 65,000 H-1B visas are issued per year, despite some 163,000 applications in 2008. These rejected applications represent almost 100,000 workers every year who could dynamically contribute to our nation's economy and help launch the next generation of entrepreneurial start-ups.
Involve the business community.
With such high stakes in an immigration reform bill, Congress needs to ensure that all voices are heard in the debate, particularly those of the business community. To this end, major companies like Cisco, Genentech, and Coca-Cola have formed a coalition, Compete America, to advocate for immigration reform on behalf of the business community.
The bid to attract the world's top intellectual capital is escalating. Australia, Canada just completed immigration reform overhauls to boost their attractiveness to would-be migrants to the United States. Moreover, countries like China, India, and South Korea, long exporters of their country's top talent, are fast becoming major centers of innovation and reversing the diaspora of intellectual capital. While ideas like the recently introduced "Start-Up Visa Act" in the Senate are positive starting points on the road to reform, America urgently needs to retool its immigration system to retain and attract the next generation of entrepreneurs and leaders. Without reform, we could very well face a future void of the next Intel, Sun Microsystems, or Google.
Follow Bill George on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Bill_George
The H-1b visa is a tool for companies to force foreign workers into longer hours and less pay. Employees are sponsored by these companies and asking for better working conditions will almost certainly result in their termination - and thus expulsion from the United States.
Corporate sponsored visas of all types should be banned - in favor of self sponsorship. Corporations have their profits only in mind, not the needs of American and foreign workers.
I know the recent "study" regarding H-1b workers being paid more will come out. That study is bogus and authored by a former executive at a major Indian offshore outsourcing firm. The fact is that H-1b workers are on average paid much less than their American counterparts and then compelled to work longer hours. Data from the BLS supports my statement on this.
1. 95,000 H1-B visas will be issued on October 1, 2010. The breakdown is that 20,000
will be issued for persons who hold an advanced degree from a US university, 10,000
will be issued for persons who will be working for a non-profit organization, and 65,000
will be issued for other persons who hold a BS degree or equivalent.
2. Persons who are working under an H1-B visa are specifically prohibited from
starting a company. The language prohibits a foreign national from "self-sponsoring".
They are required to be sponsored by somebody else's company.
3. There is an enormous difference between people who came to the US as
small children and people who came here after finishing college. If you can't see
that, then you have no business commenting on immigration policy.
4. H1-B visa workers are paid an average of $40,000 per year less than
the equivalent US citizen workers. H1-B is the largest immigration fraud
in American history. This fact does not change, no matter how many
fake studies are published.
Because I graduated from Yale, I am prejudiced against Harvard.
This article, however, is "above and beyond". At a minimum,
Professor George should have had a grad student do a few
minutes worth of fact checking.
-Dave Chapman
Republican Candidate for Congress
Palo Alto, California
www.DaveChapmanForCongress.com
That's because most of the immigrants from east Asian countries are not innovative. Indian, Chinese, and Japanese instruction techniques involve a majority of rote memorization. Persons from these traditions are not innovative. I have hired a number of Chinese h-1bs, and they almost never become independent - you need to manage them constantly. Americans, on the other hand, are self-starters.
Every computing innovation of the last 40 years, with some exemptions, has been designed, built and managed by Americans. We are the best and the brightest. We do not need this "foreign talent". We have thousands of American college grads who need jobs.
Now that I've dispensed with Mr. George's mischaracterization of corporate visa programs, let's address his mischaracterization of "need".
We’ve got an over abundance of highly-skilled experienced, tech professionals and an oversupply of new science & technology graduates whom we have paid dearly to educate. But companies are bypassing this US talent – and even displacing Americans from their jobs in favor of citizens from abroad - and it's legal!
In fact, Mr. George's former employer, Goldman Sachs, actually increased their usage of the H1-b corporate visa program by 13% in FY '09 (Oct 2008-Oct 2009), and then laid off 3,200 American citizens and green card holders in the 4th quarter 2008. Seems that Mr. George's column is addressing the "need" that corporations have to displace Americans & green card holders from their jobs.
Seems that Mr. George is also misleading HuffPo readers to conclude that corporate visa programs somehow test intelligence, ingenuity, or future performance. They do not. But they do test America's commitment to Equal Opportunity and fair play.
Donna Conroy, Director
Brightfuturejobs.com
The main problem is that we have changed, beginning in 1965 from an immigration system that encourages smart, well educated and motivated people to most of our immigration being family reunification priority. So a elderly parent or a (usually newly green carded immigrant), who will never work, pay taxes or contribute gets priority over a doctor or scientist. That parent is allowed to get social security without ever having paid into the system. The family can "sponsor" that person with almost no income and after a very short time it is OK for them to get social programs.
Don't get me wrong I understand the desire to reunite with family. But immigration is supposed to work towards making THIS country stronger and to benefit the citizens of THIS country. We need to lower the numbers to something sustainable and only allow immigrants who will always follow our laws, are highly educated, motivated and will contribute. I do see a small number of immediate family, but only when they will never use any social programs. If they don't like that I'm sure there are 100 others who will gladly accept those terms.