The U.S. immigration system is broken. There is no doubt about it. And it is high time for a reassessment. One of the biggest issues to face immigration policy in recent years has been the difficulty confronted by foreign, skilled workers to obtain visas allowing them to legally reside and work in the US. Private sector visa caps, employer unwillingness and unfamiliarity with the process, and cost rank as the most apparent barriers to hiring foreign nationals.
I am a foreign national. I have spent 10 of my 25 years in this country, first in New York and then in Washington, D.C. I have gone to secondary school, college and one of the top graduate schools in the world, Georgetown -- all in the United States. I am a foreign affairs and international development professional, and I did foreign affairs policy for a Member of Congress. I am NOT illegal. I am an international student. I am soon heading back to Bangladesh to work in development there. But not because that was my first choice.
In the case of international students who emerge from a world-class education system, the challenges associated with finding a job in the U.S. after graduation are exacerbated by the difficulty thousands each year face in finding an employer that is open to hiring non-U.S. nationals. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, "We would love to hire you, but you're not American." Some argue that foreign students are a threat to the U.S. workforce. A National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA) report negates the assertion with the argument that,
Preventing high-skilled foreign nationals from working in the United States will not help U.S. students. It will harm them. Encouraging employers to hire foreign nationals overseas, rather than in America, will push capital from the United States to locations where the foreign talent is allowed to be hired.
Is it not worth it to invest, on the upper end of the spectrum, the roughly $4,000 it takes to sponsor a foreign student's work visa? The U.S. economy benefits from foreign nationals who are part of the workforce. A study conducted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shows that the addition of 100 H1-B workers would result in 183 American jobs. Foreign-born workers with advanced degrees pay over $20,000 in taxes per year, contributing significantly to tax revenues.
As it stands now, U.S. immigration policy all but ignores the potential economic benefits of an entire portion of the college educated workforce. Look at it this way: U.S. colleges and universities spend four solid years teaching, influencing and cultivating the intellect of thousands of international students who choose to study here, but the country does not actively harness and embrace their talents. Does this country really want to let someone with my educational background and earning potential go? The rational solution would be to integrate people like me into the U.S. workforce instead of opening the sphere for increased competition from abroad. By making it difficult for these students to become part of the workforce, the U.S. loses out on much needed revenue. After all, by leaving, I will provide my governance and development expertise to organizations abroad. I will pay taxes abroad.
Foreign students who emerge from STEM programs are more likely to obtain higher paying jobs, consequently paying more in taxes. But why stop there? Why not make it easier for students who focus on business, qualitative research, and international development to stay? The residency process in countries like Australia is conducive to allowing Australian-educated students to stay and work. The Australian government recognizes the value of foreign students as productive contributors to their national economy. It is high time the US does, as well.
The Brookings Institution recently published a study on the H1B visa process. The study revealed that employers in metropolitan U.S. cities want more work visas available. If employers want more visas, and foreign students like me have the desire to live, work and pay taxes in the US, shouldn't the mechanisms be simplified so that we are allowed to do so?
Andy Burrows: Student Visa Restrictions Damaging & Badly Communicated
Has this article just become one public JOB HUNT advert by Ruzan Sarwar. Ridiculous !
Moreover, our immigration law does allow you to work here IF you can find an employer to sponsor you. Fact is, your education and skills are NOT exceptional enough for an employer to want to go to the trouble of sponsoring you. And there is no reason to displace AMERICANS from jobs so that you can work here.
I am getting pretty tired of this.
Your darn tootin' are immigration policy is screwed up.
That's "international" from the vantage point of the Georgetown campus, which is located in the United States, which means that your course of study prepared you to work anywhere but the United States! Furthermore, "international development" means you are expert in the concerns of undeveloped countries. Now, Republican refusal to maintain our existing infrastructure is certainly moving the United States in that direction, but we're not there yet. As you very well know, and knew when deciding on your course of study, immigration is most readily available to STEM graduates, which you are not. Boo-hoo, those are the rules and you know it, and you knew it all along.
A real failing, not only of our immigration system but of our entire political system, is that titans of industry are routinely treated by Congress as "subject matter experts" rather than the biased manipulators of the political system that we all know they are.
http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/02/8924/
Instead of recognizing his vested interest in obtaining more H1B visas, Congress treats him as an "expert" and on the basis of his "expert" testimony, Congress directly harms computer programmers who are legitimate citizens without any contrived exemptions to normal immigration policy.
I work in the journalist-media and have been cursed/blessed enough to be embedded a couple of times with both American troops and British troops. One of the most ironic things I ever ran across in Iraq once was in a mess-tent one afternoon. I ran into four young men, all US Army that were Mexican-Americans, two of which were distant cousins and all were the sons of illegal parents living in the states.
The irony of this is that today we have a candidate running for US President that has five sons, all of whom were of age to serve in the military during our wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, and neither of them did.
I believe most people here would be quite surprised to find out just how many sons and daughters of illegal-immigrants are today serving proudly in US military forces defending YOUR country.
Please try to remember this.
http://www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/memorial.html
By the way, many in our military, particularly those from poor families, as these children of illegal aliens are, are likely to enlist as much for a job as from patriotism. My Mexican-American nephew, the grandson of legal immigrants, just enlisted in the Navy for its career opportunities.
"Security risk" -- wow, what you don't know. Pretentious little games of making an issue of something this government has ALWAYS ignored. Have you ever heard of the "Bataan Death March"? Company E of 141st Regiment? (all NON-English speakers) during WW2. 1,126 killed, 5000 wounded, 31 Distinguished Service Crosses, 12 Legions of Merits, 492 Silver Stars, 1,685 Bronze Stars, 12 Medal of Honors.
My own father and uncle are D-Day veterans, his 7 brothers have all fought from WW2 to Vietnam. 14 cousins have fought from Vietnam to Afghanistan. It is estimated that over 20,000 Hispanic servicemen and women participated in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. We have 11 distinguished medals in our Mexican family. Career opportunities? Yeah, right.
I, a veteran of Desert Storm and Kosovo, proudly consider myself Mexican, as many in my family do, though personally, I have never been or visited Mexico. When you can provide those same stats from your family I'll give your comment merit -- your nephew is a good start though.
You can actually save money on your payroll tax by hiring J1 students and letting them do seasonal jobs for your business!
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Here’s an explanation of how US-based businesses can legally save 7.65% off their payroll expenses. When you hire J1 students, they are required to pay a number of taxes – Federal, State, and local. What they don’t pay are Social Security, Federal Unemployment and Medicate taxes. It is a common practice to match some of the taxes so that a certain percentage of a worker’s wage goes to cover these taxes. These are usually 6.2% for Social Security, up to 6.2% for Federal Unemployment, and 1.45% for Medicare. For foreign seasonal workers, these three figures are zeroes. Thus, you save 7.65% of the total payroll expense, or 8.45% of total employee salaries.
Thanks to loopholes like this people in need who have paid their dues and taxes and deprived of things they've earned and need in lieu of outsiders on a free ride.
Ronald Reagan ordered a main dish of amnesty with a side of enforcement. The side dish never came. Now they are trying to do it again. Reagan is the reason that we have the mess we do now. If there is any amnesty, down the road things are really going to get wild.
We can't keep taking on more foreigners, we have 23 million unemployed Americans we don't need more bodies coming in.
Immigration system is broken, there's no enforcement and the illegal aliens are bum rushing the border. Immigration has not improved life in the US in fact it's pulling US down. China is set to become the world's #1 economy around 2016. China passed Japan last year.
There is doom ahead. How long can the US support aliens? When the banks collapse or when the Yuan becomes the world's default currency this means more trouble for the states. They are broke now and firing police, fireman and teachers yet handing out money to illegal aliens and their families. Something going to blow and blow big when it comes.
You are also uninformed about the illegal immigration in the US. Most employers would not break the law and hire illegals if they could find Americans willing to do the job. Ask any Florida citrus or tomato farmer, ask food processing companies. Even poor Americans would not take those jobs.
I agree with you on Reagan though, that amnesty was like and open invitation.
And it really doesn't matter how "highly skilled" you are if there's no market for your particular skills or if there are already plenty of Americans with much the same skills. This young woman simply didn't have the skills it would take to get an employer here to go to the trouble and expense of sponsoring her.
Office of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee: Ain't giving no Non-US citizen a job
Asia, Middle East & North Africa, and Multiregional Programs Intern
National Endowment for Democracy: Intern for Endowment. Endowments and Academic think tanks way prefer phDs. No money to sponsor H1Bs.
Communications Intern
UNDP - okay...the UN is in NYC. Getting an NY based job at the UN is harder than pulling teeth. They call it the black hole for a good reason. You need to pass the UN exam and have excellent connections and being from the right country.
Program Assistant
Georgetown University, Department of Government: yeah. TAs and RAs are dime a dozen.
No for-profit company would be interested. None of the above work experience likely to hire internationals unless you're an impressive phd or have wicked connections. Don't blame it on your international status.
Australia has tried for years to find a policy that will deter would-be immigrants from trying to make the 220-mile crossing from Java to Christmas Island, a remote speck in the Indian Ocean that is Australia’s closest point to Indonesia. More than 600 migrants bound for Australia have died in accidents at sea since 2009.
“After, tragically, almost 1,000 deaths at sea and after $4.7 billion has been blown because of the government’s border protection failures, the prime minister has finally seen the sense of what the opposition has been proposing all along,” Mr. Abbott said, adding, “This government’s failures gave the people smugglers a business model.”
“This is not the end of the efforts to deal with what is the very, very, very, very pernicious trade of people smuggling, which trades on people’s lives and gives people the expectation that in return for very significant sums of money they can be brought to Australia for passage,” Chris Bowen, the immigration minister, told the lower house. “The Australian people expect no less, and the people smugglers fear nothing more.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/world/asia/immigration-reform-moves-forward-in-australia.html
"Countries like USA and Canada are in great demand by the citizens of third world nations and even the other nations too. For the people of such nations it is a dream to be in Canada. In spite of tight security at the borders, immigrants sneak into the country illegally.
After entering the nation they face challenges galore. Some of them have been mentioned below-
Medical facilities denied
Illegal immigrants are denied of any medical coverage by the government. Any illegal immigrant filing a case against any such issue loses the same as the Federal Court denies any support to such immigrants.
Approximately 40,000 to 50,000 illegal immigrants are reported in Canada. In case of any emergency the patient is admitted and then he is asked to submit their provincial card number. In absence of this document, they are asked for private insurance and then a credit card.
In case none of the above mentioned documents are submitted by the immigrants then the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada is informed and finally the person is deported from the nation.
Jobs denied
The illegal immigrants in Canada are denied of a job of good status. Most of the time they are found to be taking up jobs which are not proportionate to their skill or education. In order to survive they have to take up any job coming their way so that they can earn their living.
There are examples when an academician has to take up a job of a security to guard to support himself and his family.
School Admission denied
Children of illegal immigrants face a social trauma too. They are denied admission to government run schools as the parent is expected to submit Social Identification Number before admitting his child.
The private schools may offer them admission as the rules made by the private schools are formulated by them only. If a parent can afford the fee of a school, his child may be admitted to school but the sole discretion would be taken by the school authority.
Social Acceptance denied
Illegal immigrants might face a rejection from their neighbours and peers when people come to know about their illegitimate stay in the nation.
Illegal Immigrants face problems from all ends when they stay in a country beyond the legal regulations."
http://www.canadaupdates.com/content/life-challenging-illegal-immigrants-18334.html
Doctors don't turn away people in real need (or even minor need) they honour their Hippocratic Oath like most medical workers anywhere. Heath care and illegal immigrants is an on going issue but Canadians like anywhere else are dealing with this issue sanely and humanly.
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1788&context=facpub
If there's someone skilled enough, an employer like anywhere in the world will go out of their way to legally hire that person.
http://www.canadaupdates.com/content/canada-admits-record-number-immigrants-16170.html
Canadians don't mistreat children - no more then Americans do - they're children, the last thing any nation wants to be known for is causing "social trauma" against a child. What kind of society would that be?
I've had oppurtunities to do charity work in 3rd world countries, by coincidence, I find myself working side-by-side with Canadians. I've always found them to be a warm, giving and kind people with big-hearts... it's difficult to believe that they then go home and mistreat and ostracise their very neighbours because they're illegal. That's just more wishful thinking.
http://www.visaplace.com/blog-immigration-law/immigration-law-firm-toronto/3-more-untrue-immigration-myths-illegal-immigrants-in-canada/