James Madison once posited “America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.”
The welcoming (but limited) open arms attitude in the past century that has led to the diverse, heterogeneous melting pot of creativity, talent and innovation in this country has, in my opinion, always set the United States apart from the rest of the world. Remember Instagram? Of course you do, it’s one of the most popular U.S. social media services that was bought by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012. One of its co-founders, Mike Krieger (vital to building this U.S-exclusive startup), was a Brazilian immigrant.
Whatever money it makes, whatever taxes are owed by its employees, goes back to pumping our economy, ultimately creating more American job opportunities. Congressman Dave Reichert of Washington state declared years ago that “immigration is compatible with, but also an essential component of economic growth…”.
I know there’s controversy surrounding this election cycle’s presidential candidates when it comes to their illegal immigration stances. Some candidates would have our country literally build a wall to keep outsiders from slithering into our borders from Mexico, going so far to propose policies based on “counterimmigrationism”—proactively identifying illegal immigrants currently in the United States to boot them back to their original country—to rid many of these so-called “criminals, drug dealers, rapists,” according to Donald Trump’s words.
We are to believe that a giant burden to our economy are individuals who are from overseas that threaten to “take err jobs!” Despite the likelihood that migrants come here for a better life and their willingness to take risks coming here, they’d only end up as economic leeches, right?
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to prevent illegal immigration.
We want to encourage those looking for better opportunities to follow a legal process of U.S. citizenship, reaping the perks of being a citizen without being an undocumented drain on our bureaucratic resources.
But what if I were to propose to you, that a significant threat to the U.S. economy has less to do with illegal immigration, and more to do with the way our one of our current immigration policies discourages the notion of pursuing legal status?
Let me introduce you to the problems of the H-1B visa program.
The United States has a unique competitive advantage in the world: attracting foreign talent. We’ve never really had an issue with brain-drain. Most people that come from outside the United States tend to end up staying here. The opportunities to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness through hard work is a seductive call that’s hard to pass up.
These people tend to be made up of “skilled workers,” highly educated foreigners that bring their talent and expertise to our country. Here’s a positive side-effect: A Huffington Post article from 2012 found that immigrants are twice as likely to start a business compared American-born citizens.
As of 2011, immigrant-run businesses employed 1 in 10 American workers. Immigrants? Job creation? No way!
So, if you make it difficult to follow an immigration process, it becomes legally impossible to work inside a country. Thus, you cannot produce anything of value to that country’s economy. You’d be a human paperweight.
Enter the H-1B program, a temporary work visa program created in 1990 that allows nonimmigrant foreigners to legally work in the United States for 3 years. It allows foreigners who are serious in pursuing citizenship to demonstrate that they can contribute to our economy, making it easier to fast-track their green card application. American companies that cannot find talent domestically to fulfill certain positions usually search overseas to acquire the right person for a job.
Therefore, this program is geared towards STEM workers. You cannot simply file for this program; you must be “sponsored” by a company hiring you. Various companies, from Amazon to Disney, sponsor some outsiders to keep foreign talent away from other competitors.
Congress grants 85,000 H-1B visas annually. In 2015, 233,000 petitions were filed in less than one week. These workers are certainly in high demand.
But what’s the issue with the program? It seems to be a genuine stepping stone for permanent immigration.
Not if you’re a spouse of an H-1B holder, or a company looking for cheaper labor.
You are designated an “H4” status as a H-1B holder’s spouse. The “perk” for this is that you are not allowed to work in the United States. In 2013, 55,000 professionals came on an H-1B visa. Only half their spouses (most workers themselves) came along due to nonexistent professional opportunities. Can you blame them for not wanting to come to a perceived false land of opportunity?
Several tech companies have started employing H-1B software engineers under the guise of “software consultants”. If you’re a software engineer being sponsored by IBM, you’d be paid somewhere around $130,000. But as a “consultant”, you might be paid only $60,000 (no health benefits attached).
This means that the program’s loopholes cause American workers to lose their job to nonimmigrants, in a documented, cheaper, legal manner.
Ironic, isn’t it?
In 2013, Americans lost more than an estimated 12,000 jobs to a cheaper H-1B worker. That number has only risen.
That year, the majority of H-1B workers hosted by two IT companies sponsored a few workers for permanent residence in the United States. Infosys sponsored 7, while Tata sponsored 0.
However, 12,432 visa applications were approved for these companies alone. Simply put, these companies had no intention of helping these workers acquire permanent citizenship. That’s just legal trolling.
Imagine that this is only one type of work visa program out there. Dealing with illegal immigration is certainly important, but we mustn’t lose our advantage of attracting foreign talent either.
At the end of the day, we shouldn’t say that we want immigrants coming in legally if our current immigration policies does too much to discourage legal immigration.
Asad Uddin a senior political science major from Oxford.
