Should H-1B Visas Be Easier to Get? >
Most Immigrants Create Jobs
H-1B visas are one of our best tools to attract international brain power
December 28, 2011
About Tamar Jacoby:
Tamar Jacoby, a fellow at the New America Foundation, is president of ImmigrationWorks USA, a national federation of small business owners working for better immigration law.
In the 19th century, powerful nations fought each other for territory and natural resources—coal, iron ore, and colonies in the developing world. Today, the race is to attract skilled workers, particularly scientists, engineers, and IT technicians.
[Chamber of Commerce, Bloomberg Push Immigration Reform.]
The United States has been their destination of choice since World War II—the place to go for challenging work and a better life. But that is changing. Other economies too—Europe, Canada, Australia, India, and China—are now competing to attract international brain power. America needs to do everything it possibly can to attract these workers—without them, we will not remain a globally competitive knowledge economy. And among the best tools at our disposal is the H-1B temporary visa.
But wait, you say, the unemployment rate is close to 9 percent, the real unemployment rate—including people who have stopped looking for work—well into double digits. How could we possibly need foreign workers, skilled or unskilled?
What you're forgetting: The unemployment rate for college graduates is 4.4 percent. And 60 to 70 percent of the students in American computer science and electrical engineering graduate programs are foreign-born. Like it or not, we're just not producing enough American scientists, engineers, inventors, or IT entrepreneurs to keep up with the pace of global innovation. No country is. That's why we're in this race for international talent.
[Tech Companies Want More Foreign STEM Workers.]
Far from taking jobs from Americans, most immigrants create jobs. According to one recent study, every 100 H-1B workers who came to the U.S. from 2001 to 2010 correlated with 183 new jobs for U.S. workers—that's the power of innovation and entrepreneurship.
So why a temporary visa? If these people are so productive, don't we want them to settle permanently? In the long run, we do. But settling is a big decision, one that rarely happens overnight. And even when people decide to make the leap, moving permanently to the U.S., they often wait years for their permanent visas, or green cards, to come through. But American companies need workers in real time, and many young technicians and recent science graduates are happy to start on short-term visas.
In the long run, America needs both—a ready supply of short-term visas and more green cards, made available faster, for knowledge workers. We need this talent now, and we will need it even more as the economic recovery takes off.
[U.S. Tourism's 'Lost Decade' Cost Some 500,000 Jobs.]
Do we want to develop the next generation of information technology here in the U.S.? The next biomedical breakthrough? The next discovery about the nature of the universe? If you think we do, there's no dispute: H-1B visas should be easier to get.
- U.S. News Debate Club: Is Newt Gingrich Right About Immigration?
- How the Economy Would Change Under Newt Gingrich.
- Rep. Tim Griffin to Introduce High-Skilled Immigrant Bill.
- Other Arguments
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#113511179
No — Loopholes mean that each H-1B worker here is a proxy for even more jobs lost
JOHN MIANO, Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies
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#213771251
No — The use of the programs for cheaper labor is substantial and growing
RON HIRA, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and Research Associate with the Economic Policy Institute
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#313241204
No — Thirst for cheaper guest workers is pushing a generation of Americans away from tech fields, enlarging the void
DANIEL STEIN, President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform
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#415861577
No — H-1B should return to goal of recruiting the best and brightest from around the globe
NORM MATLOFF, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis
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#613111361
Yes — The American economy is losing out on people who could launch whole new companies and product lines
JOHN FEINBLATT, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Chief Policy Adviser and Director of the Partnership for a New American Economy
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#712051353
Yes — Reform H-1B, but don't ignore legitimate needs of American employers
JASON DZUBOW, Immigration Attorney at Dzubow, Sarapu & Pilcher, PLLC
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#87931188
No — America is unique because it turns newcomers into Americans
BRUCE A. MORRISON, Former Chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration, Claims, and International law
