Immigration has been key to America's preeminence in science and technology, and yet we're losing our competitive advantage. The loss of highly skilled immigrants is a serious threat to our global economic leadership -- and the jobs that flow from it -- and eliminating government obstacles in the way of that talent should be a top priority for bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill once elections are over.
In a recent report titled "Not Coming to America: Why the U.S.
is Falling Behind in the Global Race for Talent," the Partnership for a New American Economy and the Partnership for New York City wrote:
More than 40 percent of America's Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or a child of an immigrant. In recent years, however, U.S. immigration laws have failed to keep pace with the country's changing economic needs. Artificially low limits on the number of visas and serious bureaucratic obstacles prevent employers from hiring the people they need -- and drive entrepreneurs to other countries, who are quick to welcome them.
The Economist wrote recently: "The world's most valuable resource is talent. No country grows enough of it. Some, however, enjoy the colossal advantage of being able to import it... Yet for more than a decade America has been choking off its supply of foreign talent, like a scuba diver squeezing his own breathing tube."
The Kauffman Foundation has studied immigrant entrepreneurship in America extensively. In a recent report titled "Then and Now: America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part VII," it notes, "43.9 percent of Silicon Valley startups founded in the last seven years had at least one key founder who was an immigrant. This represents a notable drop in immigrant-founded companies since 2005, when 52.4 percent of Silicon Valley startups were immigrant-founded." Of the engineering and technology companies founded in the United States between 2006 and 2012, the report states: "24.3 percent of these companies had at least one key founder who was foreign-born... Nationwide, these companies employed roughly 560,000 workers and generated $63 billion in sales in 2012."
Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and now Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, addressed this issue in a recent commentary for TheAtlantic.com's series "America the Fixable." He wrote:
Since the early 1980s, entrepreneurs founding new startups created around 40 million American jobs, accounting for all of the country's net job growth during that period... In recent years, however, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the United States has not churned out job gains at its historical pace: During the five year period ending in 2010, the number of startups with more than one employee decreased by more than 25 percent, and new startups that are launching are adding fewer jobs on average than in previous decades... As we begin writing the next chapter of the American story, we need to return to our entrepreneurial roots and improve the environment for a new generation of pioneering risk-takers to do what they do best. By fixing a broken high-skilled immigration system and encouraging the world's most talented innovators to contribute here in the United States, we will once again secure our lead as the world's most entrepreneurial economy.
Steve Case's advice deserves particular attention, given his track record. In addition to co-founding AOL, his current investment firm, Revolution, has backed more than two dozen companies, including LivingSocial, Zipcar, AddThis, Everyday Health, and FedBid. And he is currently Chairman of the Startup America Partnership, Co-Chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Chair of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness' work on entrepreneurship, as well as Chairman of the Case Foundation.
A growing political consensus is emerging on the importance of highly skilled immigrants to the American economy. As David Bier wrote for Forbes.com, "In the heated immigration debate, a bright spot has emerged -- the bipartisan consensus that high-skilled immigrants benefit the economy." Yet the issue remains embroiled in the broader immigration debate around which no consensus has emerged.
It's time to separate the two issues. Americans want jobs, and our nation's capacity to attract the highly skilled immigrants who have historically produced those jobs is at stake. That issue -- regardless of politics -- is distinctly different from the issue of securing our borders.
America's broken visa system is undercutting the innovative entrepreneurship that has generated the jobs that Americans so desperately need. It's time to fix the problem.
As the Economist writes: "America ought to be winning the global war for talent, but thanks to its immigration rules, it is fighting with both hands cuffed."
James M. Gentile is President and CEO of Research Corporation for Science Advancement (www.rescorp.org), which celebrates its Centennial -- 100 years of science advancement -- this year.
First of all, the immigration of scientists has enriched America not because their value is recognized and they are welcomed....they enrich our nation because America has a long history of contempt for the highly educated so until the 1950s our conservative (austerity oriented) government refused to help people become scientists. Who earns more: the pro football player or the physicist? Who earned more over their lifetime: Albert Einstein or Frank Sinatra?
Seond, fewer foreign scientists are immigrating to America because countries that educate men and women to beome scientists have finally recognized their value to their economy. These people no longer need to emmigrate to earn a decent living. American conservatives want to eliminate scholarships for anyone with the intellectual ability to become a scientist but not the money to pay for the advanced education.
College football scholarships are available. Colleges are so desparate for these athletes that they actually send people to high schools to recruit them. How often do colleges visit high school "nerds" to recruit them to be physicists and engineers?
A qualified scientist can always get a visa and green card to come to America.
Ummmm, what's wrong with our immigration laws? We allow 3 million people to become citizens every year.
The backlog you refer to is a function of businesses seeking to replace a qualified American worker with a much cheaper foreign worker. There is no shortage of American scientistsd and engineers. A significant percentage are unemployed.
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And exactly why must we have global economic leadership? People in dozens of countries around the world live perfectly happy without global economic leadership.
Any kind of "global leadership" talk is code for "the 1%." Those are the only ones who benefit from it. And it's beggar-thy-neighbor because it amounts to stealing from other countries. It's the economic equivalent of war.
This whole globalism phenomenon has been a scam perpetrated by the wealthy interests of a few countries. Those wealthy interests joined together to rape the world.
Glad you asked, Einstein. Cuz you won't like a global economy ruled by China. Think: "Roman Empire". Rome taxed all its provinces to pay for maintaining Rome.
".....People in dozens of countries around the world live perfectly happy without global economic leadership...."
Ummm, *NO*!!!! They live happily under what has been until now was the global economic leadership of America.
And how has America's global economic leadership been benign? How do countries like Norway and Australia, for example, benefit from it? How would that change if China had the greater GDP (which it will have soon anyway)?
Another example: the telephone communications industry was created by Alexander Graham Bell, a Canadian.
The modern electrical system was invented by Tesla, a Russian.
The atomic energy system was founded by the work of Albert Einstein, the concept of fission developed by Leo Szilard, a refugee from Hitler.
The US economy didn't go into the toilet because of immigrants but because American businesses made more money if manufacturing was moved to other countries.
There is something very wrong with this picture:
Country of 310 million, best universities in the world, ignores own people with high tech degree while listening to the "experts" and immigrants who want more high tech immigrant students and workers.
The system is rigged. It needs to be reformed mostly because it's detrimental to our own workers and students. Some reforms would also benefit the true "best and brightest."
Most foreign workers on H-1B don't buy ANYTHING except food in the US. In fact most of them live 10 to an apartment to save $. Their goal is to spend as little as possible and send as much back to India as possible since when they return there, due to the exchange rate, they can retire like kings on $50K exported from the US economy. The theory that they spend is here is also false. America's biggest recession in 70 years has happened at exactly the same time period of the mass influx of foreign labor. Obviously both tax wise and demand wise, they are a net negative for the US economy. Even US Senator Diane Feinstein said foreign workers come here and pay no taxes.
Granted there is a lot of money to be made off immigration. The wealthy make obscene amounts of profits from mass immigration as we flood the labor markets and lower wages/higher unemployment/lack of college placements of citizens in job categories immigrants flock to are the proof.
There should be FOUR main criteria for how many bodies we accept per year and that is the environment, available resources, supply services and OUR needs.
The environment is simple - if we don't have the ability to not take open spaces, not harm our wildlife and ecosystems and not alter our ability to keep those things in balance then we shouldn't accept anyone extra.
Available resources means until we find new sources of water (35 states in drought last year), new affordable energy sources and the ability to dispose of all the waste products generated by the people we already have then we certainly don't need more bodies.
Services means do we have the roads, hospitals, schools, etc and the funding to build new ones needed by the new people coming.
Need is complicated but it should be unemployment based with that persons contributions they have.
The desires of big business, foreigners, politicians or special interest groups shouldn't matter at all.
The shift to a service based economy requires fewer high skilled workers. Then the economy went in the tank in the tank, characterized by high unemployment and higher underemployment, so there are fewer and fewer jobs for all the engineers that STEM is aiming to produce. With the focus on producing college grads, we will soon be like India where PHD's take menial jobs just to pull pay check. Throw in the at-will employment contracts - why would any sane (non-desperate) person actually want to immigrate here?
People actually have to have disposable income to buy stuff so we can only support so many high tech companies and statistically most start-ups fail. Investors have a glut of proposals to choose from so unless an immigrant has either a startlingly good idea or a bunch of money to find his own efforts they are likely to fail and they know this. Previously the USA was THE target for any company wanting to sell stuff. Now - not so much.
Does that mean that we should stop trying - absolutely not. We just have to accept that we have had a period of unprecedented prosperity. However when I look at the trend towards smaller cars, roof racks and trailers rather than SUV's, single car families, home cooking rather than take out and staycations, it looks awfully like the post depression era.
David Bier? That guy is a radical open border ideologue. A lot of these guys use STEM as a front but are really for indiscriminate and unlimited immigration. As a scientist, I hope you recognize what a disaster that would be for the U.S. in light of world population growth and climate change.
You have written that the U.S. must produce more STEM graduates but we already have a glut of STEM graduates who cannot get a job in their field. If you think mass immigration of STEM graduates or "stapling a green card" to foreign graduates of U.S. universities is the ticket, consider the deterrent that has on Americans studying those academic areas. Why would an American want to enter a field if they know that companies will have an unlimited supply of foreign labor which they want to pay less?
When they cannot consistently fill the jobs here....they will be forced to open centers in countries where they can fill these jobs.
Its easy to say there is a glut - but when companies cannot fill their positions, there is a shortage of people with the correct skills.
Why? This may come as a surprise to Gentile, but there are other important stakeholders and voting blocs that also want immigration reform, for instance farmers, the travel and hospitality industry, Latinos/Asians/immigrant communities (VOTERS), etc.
Solution: If you want high-skill visa reform, you should inform your Congressmen that they cannot count on you votes unless they help pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2013.
America has wonderful universities and wonderful students.
If you want more top scientists, help our own people.
First of all, assure them that if they study for 10 years that their job won't go away to China or be given to an immigrant who will work harder for less.
Sponsor scholarships to help our own people get out of school without huge debts.
I will continue to dismiss these kinds of articles until I see lots more efforts being made to get American workers and brilliant students into colleges and jobs.
I believe that due to the enormous amount of recent immigration and projects of future US population increases that future immigrants should not be allowed to sponsor parents, brothers and sisters and adult children over age 25.
But while fairness to the immigrants is an important concern, the #1 priority for immigration reform should be what benefits US citizens.
That is US citizens -- all of us -- not US multinational corporations or cheap labor employers of any kind.
I don't think we owe it to every temporary worker who is here for 4-5 years to give them a green card. Under the current system we have people with Masters degrees who are doing work that our own people with Masters degrees can do.
People overseas have to realize that with a population of 310 million that expected to reach 400 million by around 2050 that America cannot take in nice person who wants to come here.
Our government should start saying this to make this obvious point clear.
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