America's immigration system is broken. While most focus on illegal immigration or changing ethnicities of legal immigration, what concerns me is that we are losing our historic ability to attract and retain the word's brightest and most entrepreneurial workers.
Silicon Valley exemplifies an American success story threatened by a shift in how we treat the type of bright foreign-born technologists and entrepreneurs who help make us great. These engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs build companies that create jobs and wealth in the United States. Of the 163,000 applications for H1B visas received last year, the law allows for just 65,000 approvals picked through a lottery system. H1B visas allow foreign workers in specialty occupations to work in the United States.
The New York Times recently profiled a young engineer for Google, Sanjay G. Mavinkurve, an Indian-born, American-educated entrepreneur who helped write the code for a website that would become Facebook. But now, Mr. Mavinkurve, who once proudly displayed an American flag in his college dorm room, must work in Canada because visa rules make it impracticable to move his wife and family to the United States.
The Times stated it well: "His case highlights the technology industry's argument that the United States will struggle to compete if it cannot more easily hire foreign-born engineers."
The economic crisis has led many Americans, including some lawmakers, to turn inward, preferring what they perceive as a safe path of protectionism to global competition. To them, immigrants take jobs away from more deserving Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To restore our economy, we need to do everything we can as a nation to attract the best and the brightest to come to the United States. Innovative immigrants have always been - and will continue to be - central to America's growth, job creation and global competitiveness.
Immigrants to our country founded more than half of all Silicon Valley start-ups created in the past decade, according to Duke University researcher Vivek Wadhwa. Half of all Silicon Valley engineers are foreign born, up from 10 percent in 1970, and about 40 percent of all U.S. patents go to immigrants. These immigrant-founded companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in revenue in 2005.
A recent Kauffman Foundation study, led by Wadhwa, found that America is experiencing a brain drain of talented foreign-born entrepreneurs, many of whom after graduating from a U.S. university return to their home countries owing to challenges receiving a H1B visa. Most entrepreneurs surveyed said their home countries offered better opportunities to start their own businesses.
Losing this level of talent weakens one of America's greatest competitive advantages. America is the most innovative, creative and entrepreneurial country on earth because we've historically attracted the best and the brightest thinkers from around the world. In the technology industry, some of our greatest companies - including Yahoo, Google, Sun, Intel, Audiovox, Qualcomm, and eBay - were founded and led by immigrants whose successful companies today employ hundreds of thousands of Americans.
During the tech boom, Congress did temporarily amend the H1B visa laws to allow U.S. companies to sponsor more foreign workers - 115,000 workers in 1999 and 195,000 in 2001, but regrettably, they did not continue on this path. Instead, they reverted back to the all-too-low 65,000 quota, with an additional 20,000 for foreign nationals holding a master's degree or higher, first set in 1990. That number indicates the government is out of touch with the skilled workers required to maintain America's innovation economy.
The H1B visa debate should not be guided by the number of applications received in any one year. Given to the changes in the economy, some years will see huge spikes and other years will see valleys. We instead need to be focused on long-range policy decisions to attract the best and the brightest to work and create wealth in America over a period of their entire careers.
President Obama has signaled he wants America to be a destination for businesses, capital investment and workers, and updating the H1B visa plan is an important step in fulfilling that vision. I am hopeful that his administration, and Congress, reverses course with the current H1B visa laws to allow more talented immigrants, and their families, into the United States to work for American companies rather than forcing them to locate their businesses elsewhere in the world.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
The answer: fraud, fraud, fraud.
We need to pass S.887. Call your representiives today.
First, this is a listing of the 7 largest non-goverment employers (publicly traded companies)
2007 numbers are the most recent I could find.
Compiled and published by the Star Ledger "September 28, 2008"
Based on total number of full-time equivalent employees as of December 31, 2007
1. Verizon Communications 18,000
2. Harrah's 16,150
3. UPS 15,505
4. Walmart 15,253
5. Johnson & Johnson 14,000
6. Pathmark Stores 13,300
7. Continental Airlines 12,113
---------------------------------------
TOTAL 104,321
The following number is the total number of H1Bs in NJ as of 2007
as published by the US Department of Labor:
114,229
Yep, more than the 7 largest private employers combined.
You may say that not all of these positions are Software/IT related.
You would be correct. The Department of Labor classifies 85,041 of these as
"Systems Analysis and Programming".
Anyone who says that these numbers don't indicate at least a loosely
concerted effort by big business to bring down IT wages is either
lying or just plain stupid.
Following most recent trashing will be regularly updated.
'Americans first' gaining traction By GEBE MARTINEZ | Politico, Apr 20 2009
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21424.html#commentsform
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21424.html#commentsform
Imagine a society that made decisions based upon the common good for the majority of its citizens and where corporations pay their taxes. Our school would have the resources to generate these talents and our best and brightest would aspirate to career in engineering and sciences instead of running ponzi scheme in Wall Street. What a novel idea.
Grassley supports legalizing 10-20 million illegal mmigrats who are actually here illegally but has problem with 500K legal immigrants, who pay taxes like every other American, has learnt American way of life(not because Obama asked him/her to but because he/she wanted to).
Most H1B have been part of American's good days and will help America during bad days. I really hope American does not become one of many "use and abuse" countries.
Maybe you don't deserve the fortunate circumstances you had in your life. There is probably someone in the world who is less fortunate than you. Are you willing to sacrifice your future so that person can step over you?
Not so easy when the shoe is on the other foot.
Educate yourself:
H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest
By Norman Matloff, May 2008
http://www.cis.org/h1bs_not_best.html
Low Salaries for Low Skills: Wages and Skill Levels for H-1B Computer Workers, 2005
By John Miano, April 2007
http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back407.html
H-1B Visa Numbers: No Relationship to Economic Need
By John Miano, June 2008
http://www.cis.org/H1bVisaNumbers
20 ppl in 3 bed room apt which is full of bugs. Wait for 2 hrs if you want to take a dump in restroom in morning. Life is like hell. They will tell you to stay in living room for a week till they arrange other accomodation. That week will never come. Next week you will be told : "You will have to stay in that guesthouse now , we dont have other guest houses"
http://www.desicrunch.com/DisplayReviews.aspx?Company=Vedicsoft&page=2
100s of consultants on bench. Marketing is indeed aggressive. They will try to sell C# consultant as sharepoint developer by adding more fake points to already faked resume. They don't care if a C# candidate is ready to go as Sharepoint Developer or not. They will force you to take interviews.
http://www.desicrunch.com/DisplayReviews.aspx?Company=Vedicsoft&page=1
It is a big problem that has gone on for years, and it is becoming increasingly mangled and exploited more every year.
Another big problem is all of our best and brightest young American college students avoid IT careers like the plague now due to the lack of prosperity via guest worker infestation.
Let's hope the Durbin - Grassley bill S. 877 gets traction and starts unwrapping these fraud ridden and grossly exploited guest worker programs. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-887
Let's get American career prosperity and American jobs flowing back to the American IT workers!
And comming to immigrants - who is native in this country ? ask your Grandfather ? Everybody are immigrants and one replaced another through domination or force (referring to Red Indians).
Imagine what would happen when the rest of the world boycotts the American products from Coke, Nike, MTV, Hollywood, weapons, last but not least the 'Dollar' and what not.
This wonderful contry has been giving opportunity to each and everyone to excel and have better life - be proud to be an American and be proud to have great Constitution in place. Atleast I am proud to expereince the wisdom and enjoy the airs of Americas.
Stop complaining, start living with Universal brotherhood which you have been doing since ages, forget the bad days like now. Nobody is happy with the affects of this Recession and everybody got hit in one or other way.
May God bless America and The World.
Reverse the roles and then see if you talk about one big happy world.
The vast amount of H1Bs in this country in IT/Software development, even if the abuse didn't exist, would bring down the prevailing wage.
2. Claims that this is protection need to be compared to the H-1B visa that exists for plumbers. None. For schoolteachers, none. For hairdressers, none. H-1B is an special exception to an otherwise protected labor market, and needs to be viewed as exactly that. A special exception, that should be limited.
3. The lottery is unfair and abitrary. Auction off H-1B visas to the highest bidder. This benefits both the visa holder and the American economy. The only loser is people who wish to exploit H-1Bs.
4. Make sure that H-1Bs realize that an special exception was made for them, out of the desire to make wages worse, not better. This will give them more accurate information on the society's attitude that they wish to enter toward their right to make a living.
5. Weren't the 2 million green-carded H-1Bs that we brought in over the last decade super-geniouses when we imported them? What, exactly, about American soil has made them suddenly dumb? Is it something in the water?
Your article is an insult to millions of good American citizens who have been displaced by the new commodity: labor not made in America. Our bright American stars have no future in our glutted and gutted world of information technology.
Where is the incentive Americans have to live up to being the "best and the brightest"? Reach that star and it's given away to the lowest bidder.
My niece, an honors graduate of SUNY in NYC, said she was afraid of what her future would hold. I had no words of wisdom for her (30 years my junior) because I, too, was and am still afraid.
I know the internet is filled with propaganda and rhetoric pro-immigration. The odds are good you will not allow this post. If you care, you will find many discussions about what the influx and outsourcing has done not only to the shameful lack of quality in products Made in America (websites) but also to demoralizing Americans who once worked for the old greats - IBM, Cisco, Prudential that replaced the Americans that made them as big and as bold and innovative as they were. Stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. Perhaps we'll have the incentive, once again, to be innovative, unafraid, and bright.
The reform is to ELIMINATE ENTIRELY the program. There is no shortage of "tech talent". There is a TREMENDOUS SHORTAGE of SLAVE LABOR. That is what the H-1B program does - it provides cheap cheap labor, and mostly incompetent labor at that. The H-1Bs are not the "best and the brightest." I have hired many, and they are no brighter than Americans. What they are is LESS innovative, and LESS willing to take the initiative. I consistently must micromanage the chinese especially. Of 6 chinese, 1 was able to work without daily, minute-by-minute direction. The rest are unable to manage their own work. For Americans, we discuss the basic outline, and they are able to take the project and run with it.
It is also important to note that we are not talking about millions of foreign workers infused into our country. Supporters of this restriction have relied on distorted statistics published in recent days. The truth, according to the National Foundation for American Policy, is that H-1B visas make up anywhere between zero percent and 0.74 percent of the total workforce in most financial services firms. Moreover, H-1B workers are not "cheap labor," as the law requires them to receive the same wages and benefits as their U.S. counterparts.
It is also unfortunate that the amendment did not go through the normal legislative process where open and honest debate can take place, and Congress can look at the facts. Instead, it passed the Senate without debate. At one point, there were credible reports that the provision was to be eliminated from the final House-Senate conference report. The conferees and their staff thought it would never end if they started to attach elements that had nothing to do with economic stimulus, thinking it better to leave decisions on the pros and cons of immigration legislation for later.
Open your eyes, how come 40% of US pattents are held by immigrants, dont you see innovation here. Check the google's new inventions list and see how many Asians (Indians + chinese) have had contributed to it. If your company is not getting most out of immigrants then there shld be strong racism in curbing their talents and not letting them climb up the carreer ladder. First you fix that. All you take is smart tech work and give away laborious or tedious work to immigrants and top of that take the credit of their achievements.
Yes, much reforms are in pending on H1B regulations.
My eyes are open, you need to open yours. I'd like to thank you for supporting my point.
If 40% of US patents are held by immigrants, where's this so-called problem? Should it be 50%, 75%? How about 100%?
The fact is this: the immigrants that are heavyweights and want to be in the US, ARE. There is NO shortage. Tech companies - and their front groups like CEA - simply want to drive down wages of all American tech workers, most of who are meat-and-potatoes workers. Not everyone needs be an innovator, in fact most tech workers will never innovate a thing.
Stop the lies. At least have the decency to state your clear motivations.
Your argument over whether it should be 50%, 75% or 100% hence bespeaks a fundamental lack of logic.
As an H1-B Indian myself, I think the program is indeed flawed and in fact exploited especially by Indian outsourcers. I however don't work for them and think my advanced graduate degrees and my 60-hour work week count. I make a decent living with a 6 digit salary at 30. But my immigration woes at securing a greencard for nearly 6 years make me seriously want to go back to India since Intel and IBM and the rest are actually hiring people with PhDs from the US for challenging careers right in my home-town. I'll make a half of what I make here, but at least I won't feel indentured to an employer and disassimilated in an increasing xenophobic atmosphere.
And comming to immigrants - who is native in this country ? ask your Grandfather ? Everybody are immigrants and one replaced another through domination or force (referring to Red Indians).
Imagine what would happen when the rest of the world boycotts the American products from Coke, Nike, MTV, Hollywood, weapons, last but not least the 'Dollar' and what not.
This wonderful contry has been giving opportunity to each and everyone to excel and have better life - be proud to be an American and be proud to have great Constitution in place. Atleast I am proud to expereince the wisdom and enjoy the airs of Americas.
Stop complaining, start living with Universal brotherhood which you have been doing since ages, forget the bad days like now. Nobody is happy with the affects of this Recession and everybody got hit in one or other way.
May God bless America and The World.