Should H-1B Visas Be Easier to Get? >
We Are Creating a Dependency on H-1B Workers
Thirst for cheaper guest workers is pushing a generation of Americans away from tech fields, enlarging the void
December 28, 2011
About Daniel Stein:
Dan Stein is president of the Washington-based national immigration reform organization FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. He is an attorney who has worked for nearly 24 years in the field of immigration law and law reform.
America has become a dangerously dependent nation. We are perilously dependent on others—primarily the Chinese—to finance our massive deficits. We are increasingly reliant on hostile nations to supply our energy needs.
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Of late, we have become dependent on other nations to supply workers to fill jobs in the fields on which we have staked our economic future: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). American businesses seem to have an insatiable desire for more and more H-1B guest workers, even as our economy limps along and unemployment remains unacceptably high.
The most disturbing truth about our increasing reliance on foreign labor to fill jobs that are critical to our nation's future is that it is a dependency that is unnecessary and self-defeating. There is no shortage of qualified Americans to fill jobs in the STEM fields. If anything, there is a glut of trained workers right here at home.
- Fewer than one third of U.S. graduates with degrees in the sciences and engineering are working in fields closely related to their degrees.
- In 2006, the National Science Foundation estimated that there were at most 5.8 million U.S. jobs in STEM fields and 16.6 million workers with degrees in these professions.
- Wages in STEM occupations have not kept pace with those for other college graduates and, in some cases, have actually decreased.
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The problem is not a dearth of domestic talent, rather a preference on the part of companies for guest workers whom they believe will work for less money and who have fewer options to switch employers. A Government Accountability Office report stated it explicitly: "H-1B workers were often prepared to work for less money than U.S. workers."
The preference of U.S. employers for foreign workers is in danger of creating a national vulnerability in industries that are acknowledged to be vital to America's future. Excessive admission of H-1B workers discourages Americans from making the investment of time, brainpower, and money to train for careers in these fields. If we continue on this path, we will create a dependency where one does not currently exist and one need not exist in the future.
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American workers continue to be the most innovative and productive in the STEM fields. As a nation, our policy ought to be to nurture our homegrown talent, not to cut their legs out from under them by allowing employers unfettered access to foreign workers.
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- 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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#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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#513591391
Yes — H-1B visas are one of our best tools to attract international brain power
TAMAR JACOBY, President of ImmigrationWorks USA and Fellow at the New America Foundation
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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
