rssLooking for a Way Forward on Visa Reform
Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 8:59 am
- 4 Comments
The visa system has one fatal flaw, according to tech industry leaders: It provides too many visas for family reunification and not enough for highly educated workers to enter the country to work and innovate. Although most agree the visa system needs an overhaul to allow skilled workers into the country, tech industry leaders differ on their preferred approach for addressing visa issues, Politico reports. Some argue only comprehensive immigration reform would allow the government to improve its system for doling out high-skilled worker visas, while others say the tech industry cannot wait for large-scale reform.
Politically, changing the visa system is far more complicated than industry leaders make it out to be. While proponents of more skilled immigration claim immigrants could become entrepreneurs and create jobs, opponents argue they first take away high-paying jobs from American-born citizens.
Eliminating family reunification visas also has its political downsides: Human rights groups argue the current costs and wait times for legal, family-based immigration are prohibitive and can lead to more illegal entry.
One solution, according to some economists, would be simply to allow more immigration overall. The political appetite for that proposal, though, seems almost nonexistent.
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Comment posted October 22, 2010 @ 3:17 pm
“Although most agree the visa system needs an overhaul to allow skilled workers into the country…”
Not Really. Most CHEAP LABOR advocates maybe. Not most Americans looking for jobs that are non-existent.
Comment posted October 22, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
“Although most agree the visa system needs an overhaul to allow skilled workers into the country…”
Not true. The public has never agreed with allowing skilled foreign workers into the country.
A 1998 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken before the last major expansion of the H-1B program found that 72 percent of Americans opposed changing the nation’s immigration’s policies to allow more trained computer and software workers to come to the United States. A Harris poll taken the same year found that 86 percent of Americans agreed with this statement: “U.S. companies should train U.S. workers to perform jobs in some technical field, even if it is faster and less expensive to fill the jobs with foreign profession.”
After these poll results backers adopted a stealth strategy to hide what they were doing from the public. Members of Congress, in a couple of incidents of rare candor, admitted that the H1-B legislation was purely because of the industry's campaign contributions. Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) remarked, “Once it's clear (the visa bill) is going to get through, everybody signs up so nobody can be in the position of being accused of being against high tech. There were, in fact, a whole lot of folks against it, but because they are tapping the high-tech community for campaign contributions, they don't want to admit that in public.” Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), said, “This is not a popular bill with the public. It's popular with the CEOs…This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money.” The deceptively named “American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000″ which increased the H-1B cap to 195,000 a year for three years was debated on October 3, 2000, the day of a Presidential Debate, with the following irregularities: 1) The House had been dismissed earlier in the day and told that further proceedings were postponed until the following day. 2) A surprise session was called in which only 40 out of 435 members were present. 3) Representative Cannon (R-UT) made a motion to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill instead of the House bill that had already gone through the judiciary committee was made and acted upon (the House bill contained some protections for American workers that the Senate version dropped).
The 20,000 increase for H-1Bs with advanced degrees was included in the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill so as to avoid debate about giving away American jobs to cheap foreign labor. It was also passed in a lame duck session of Congress.
When allowing more foreign workers into the country is exposed to public viewing it always fails.
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