Dear Obama administration, members of Congress and Center for American Progress:
As Obama administration and Congress are preparing an immigration reform in early 2010, I, a long-time advocate of skill-based immigration system, have some views to share with our lawmakers.
First of all, I believe a comprehensive immigration reform is unfeasible. In 2007, an ill-fated comprehensive immigration bill which provided provisions to legalize millions of undocumented aliens drew strong opposition from American public and resulted in defeat of the bill. In the current high unemployment environment, any legislative effort to do the same is bound to fail and will be politically damaging to the president and congressional Democrats. The 2007 bill also included provisions aimed at reducing bureaucratic obstacles for American companies to hire a much smaller number of specialized, highly-trained and highly-skilled immigrants, most of whom were educated in US universities and held advanced degrees in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). As the comprehensive bill failed, those provisions sunk with it.
Secondly, we must acknowledge that the current policies are working to restrict the entry of those highly-skilled immigrants to US job market through arbitrarily imposing caps, per country quota, prolonged processing time etc.. These restrictions have not only significantly undermined American companys' ability to innovate but also damaged their long-term strategic competitiveness. Economic recovery is dependent on job creation. America's long-term prosperity is dependent on continued inflow of productive workforce with necessary skills to produce wealth and compete globally. These goals require the United States of America to maintain its ability to attract and retain highly skilled immigrants, and preserve its leadership in technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
Highly skilled immigrants, which remain a fraction of total immigrant population admitted, have pioneered in patent application and business startups. In general, highly skilled immigrants make higher income than average Americans. Therefore, they not only contribute higher tax revenue to the federal government, they but also have higher consuming capacity, which result in increase of employment in other sectors of economy. Unfortunately, in any immigration debate in the past, any legislative effort to loose the restrictions on skill-based immigration tended to be overshadowed by heated debate over how to handle millions of undocumented aliens, and then inevitably held hostage by defeat of the policies sought to legalize them. As a result, America now stands in a position to lose its technological competitive edge to its international competitors because of its political inefficiency. America can no longer afford to do so. It is time to divorce the two categories. To avoid repeating the 2007 immigration fiasco, Obama administration must abandon a comprehensive immigration reform effort, but instead launch a smaller scale and more narrowly targeted reform which must achieve following goals:
1. Eliminate the governmental caps on work visa for highly skilled, US educated immigrants. Government should let private sectors determine the number of visas they need.
2. Eliminate per country quota. Currently, the employment-based visa is set 7% for each country (China and Cambodia have the same share).
3. Reinforce laws to prevent visa abuse such as issuing visas to unqualified immigrants for lower wage and displacing American workers.
4. Allow visa portability. Allow highly skilled immigrants to switch job where their skills are found better match.
By achieving these goals, America will be able to unleash the innovative power and entrepreneurship of highly-skilled immigrants which are much needed to create jobs and build momentum to allow America to regain its ground in global competition.
As Obama administration and Congress are preparing an immigration reform in early 2010, I, a long-time advocate of skill-based immigration system, have some views to share with our lawmakers.
First of all, I believe a comprehensive immigration reform is unfeasible. In 2007, an ill-fated comprehensive immigration bill which provided provisions to legalize millions of undocumented aliens drew strong opposition from American public and resulted in defeat of the bill. In the current high unemployment environment, any legislative effort to do the same is bound to fail and will be politically damaging to the president and congressional Democrats. The 2007 bill also included provisions aimed at reducing bureaucratic obstacles for American companies to hire a much smaller number of specialized, highly-trained and highly-skilled immigrants, most of whom were educated in US universities and held advanced degrees in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). As the comprehensive bill failed, those provisions sunk with it.
Secondly, we must acknowledge that the current policies are working to restrict the entry of those highly-skilled immigrants to US job market through arbitrarily imposing caps, per country quota, prolonged processing time etc.. These restrictions have not only significantly undermined American companys' ability to innovate but also damaged their long-term strategic competitiveness. Economic recovery is dependent on job creation. America's long-term prosperity is dependent on continued inflow of productive workforce with necessary skills to produce wealth and compete globally. These goals require the United States of America to maintain its ability to attract and retain highly skilled immigrants, and preserve its leadership in technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
Highly skilled immigrants, which remain a fraction of total immigrant population admitted, have pioneered in patent application and business startups. In general, highly skilled immigrants make higher income than average Americans. Therefore, they not only contribute higher tax revenue to the federal government, they but also have higher consuming capacity, which result in increase of employment in other sectors of economy. Unfortunately, in any immigration debate in the past, any legislative effort to loose the restrictions on skill-based immigration tended to be overshadowed by heated debate over how to handle millions of undocumented aliens, and then inevitably held hostage by defeat of the policies sought to legalize them. As a result, America now stands in a position to lose its technological competitive edge to its international competitors because of its political inefficiency. America can no longer afford to do so. It is time to divorce the two categories. To avoid repeating the 2007 immigration fiasco, Obama administration must abandon a comprehensive immigration reform effort, but instead launch a smaller scale and more narrowly targeted reform which must achieve following goals:
1. Eliminate the governmental caps on work visa for highly skilled, US educated immigrants. Government should let private sectors determine the number of visas they need.
2. Eliminate per country quota. Currently, the employment-based visa is set 7% for each country (China and Cambodia have the same share).
3. Reinforce laws to prevent visa abuse such as issuing visas to unqualified immigrants for lower wage and displacing American workers.
4. Allow visa portability. Allow highly skilled immigrants to switch job where their skills are found better match.
By achieving these goals, America will be able to unleash the innovative power and entrepreneurship of highly-skilled immigrants which are much needed to create jobs and build momentum to allow America to regain its ground in global competition.
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