Proposal for Green Card to foreigners with advanced U.S. degrees

[Newsjock]

Source: The Hindu

To attract the world’s “best and the brightest”, a group of top Democratic Senators today proposed immediate Green Cards for foreigners with advanced degrees from American institutes and job offers, a good news for India which sends a large number of students to the U.S.

At the same time, they have proposed tightening of rules for H-1B and L-1 visas, which are also most popular among Indian technology professionals.

... The proposals “will reform America’s high-skilled immigration system to permanently attract the world’s best and brightest while preventing the loss of American jobs to temporary foreign labour contractors,” said a report drawn by Senators Charles E Schumer, Harry Reid and Bob Menendez.

... “In order to accomplish this goal, a Green Card (permanent residency) will be immediately available to foreign students with an advanced degree from a United States institution of higher education in a field of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, and who possess an offer of employment from a United States employer in a field related to their degree,” it says.

... It will revise wage determination needs; require Internet posting and description of employment positions; lengthen U.S. worker displacement protection; apply certain requirements to all H-1B employers rather than only to H-1B dependent employers; prohibit employer advertising that makes a position available only to, or gives priority to, H-1B non-immigrant; and limit the number of H-1B and L-1 employees that an employer of 50 or more workers in the United States may hire.

Read more: http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article418352.ece

[mopinko]

1. dh's company has several h1b's that are just this.

kids that were in college here, and looking for a job so they can stay. they get the same money as anyone else. the product of our educational investment stays here.

[Xipe Totec]

2. My son is just such a person

He has been waiting for a green card now for over five years.

Mind you, he has been approved, but he is waiting in line for his green card.

Expected wait time: 18 months as of today.

[NV Whino]

3. Does that mean

you are going to have a PhD mowing your lawn?

[2bornot2b]

4. Only if ...

the PhD is in botany.

[pampango]

5. Even the BNP, which wants to "repatriate" non-white Britons, would allow "Japanese physicists"

to help build the nuclear reactors that Nick Griffin says the UK should build.

"Griffin also gave the example of a Japanese physicist needed to help with a fleet of British-built nuclear power stations to be developed under a BNP government." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/29/bnp-non-white-britons-resettlement-grants)

Even the BNP will allow a few of "the world’s best and brightest" (even non-whites which must cause Griffin to lose some sleep) with advanced degrees to work in the UK.

[sharp_stick]

6. This would take some of the pressure off the H1

A lot of people with advanced degrees have to switch from the student visa to the H1 category before pursuing a green card.

It appears, at least based on my experience in biotech/pharma, that most people that stay after their student/post-doc days want to stay permanently.

[Hulk]

7. Great....now we'll import our intelligence instead of raising our own.

I'm getting so sick of this. We bitch and complain about the "illegals" stealing our jobs....lawn mowing, fast food service, house cleaning, etc, etc. Now we are considering opening the flood gates on the most educated to take the jobs at the top as well.

When are we ever going to learn? Are we so damned ashamed of our education system that we have to attract foreigners to take the jobs they SHOULD be filling?

Our nation has some really f*cked over priorities.

[davsand]

9. Grudgingly, I have to agree with you on this.

Why is this some kind of priority rather than maybe working to make our OWN students the "best and brightest?" Since WHEN is it ever a good plan to import workers when you have your own people looking for jobs?

Maybe my problem is that I live in a college town, but I know an awful lot of folks with advanced degrees who are working in quickie marts or tending bar.


Laura

[pampango]

10. The people they are talking about are products of our educational system.

"for foreigners with advanced degrees from American institutes"

We and most other advanced countries have always "imported" intelligence, if and when we could. Where do you think Albert Einstein and Wernher von Braun were born? Not in the US. We "imported" them. There are many,many others. They are just two of the most famous. If you check the Nobel Prize awards in scientific fields, you'll see that many of the "American" winners were not born in the US. (I'm sure the UK will be happy if, a generation from now, more future Nobel science winners are British citizens because they went to school there then stayed on to help the British sciences, after the US rejected them.)

Do you want us to provide advanced academic training for people and then force them leave and become scientists who help other countries compete with us? Some of them are not going to want to stay here after they graduate anyway but, if they do, why should we force them to help China or Brazil or Russia compete with us rather than use their "intelligence" to improve our country and create jobs here.

Perhaps a total ban on foreign students in our universities would be a better solution? That way we don't do to all the trouble to train them to be top scientists or whatever and them send them away to help our competitors. Let them go to college in Canada or the UK or Australia or anywhere else they want, but not here. My guess is those countries would be happy to take up the slack if we send our foreign students packing.

[SocialistLez]

11. +1 NT

[krabigirl]

13. Well, I don't have a problem with it.

[treestar]

17. We apparently don't have it, or don't do a good job of it

Look at the mess the schools are in.

On the other hand, the US has always brain-drained other countries. A good part of why we became "number one" is that other countries lost their top brains to us.

[amandabeech]

35. Until very recently, we did a very fine job of it.

When I was doing my BA at University of Michigan, a not-so-shabby place, students were studying science and engineering all around me, and they were almost exclusively U.S. citizens. There were a few foreign students in the graduate schools, and that's it. We pretty much did with what we had. U-M was one of the places that contributed an incredible amount to the computer revolution, and they did it with homegrown talent. I don't think that people were any dumber, or any smarter for that matter, than people that we have today. Undergraduate tuition was $900 per year.

Then, students figured out that they could make a lot more money elsewhere and businesses, particularly large ones, found that they could get cheaper workers from overseas.

Throw in ridiculous tuition raises and debt loads, and students follow the money.

Now, entry wages are lower, and smart kids won't enter the field. They have to pay their student loans with something.

[Igel]

18. It's what we've done for decades.

If you look at researchers and professors, a lot have been immigrants. You don't build the world's best system of higher ed based on a small, small subset of scholars.

One of my friend's PhD advisors was S. Asian, one of his other committee members was Chinese. My first advisor was Danish, my second Russo-Japanese. The outside member on my committee was French.

My wife's advisor was American, but another committee member was Romanian, and a third Canadian.

And so it goes. On a strictly merit based set of criteria, it's exactly what you expect. In fact, a number of countries complain about it because it constituted a "brain-drain" for decades.

Of course, we could just put into place quotas, but then you're not getting the best. We can say that there's not a bit difference between people in the top 0.0001% and people in the top 1%, but it's just not true. For most tasks, both would be "good enough." But for the absolute best, nah.

And, as the US's economy and rep has slid in the past decade or so, we're not getting the best. It'll show up in our research--and in how we educate our PhDs--in a couple of decades.

[Democat]

31. Great point, the US causes brain drain in other countries!

And Americans benefit from it in many ways.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

23. Bad analogy.

Illegal immigrants "steal" jobs because they can undercut American wages. The students this bill helps are not H-1Bs who can do the same for upper-level jobs.

And many of our greatest minds aren't originally from here. It's foolish and shortsighted to limit equal opportunity only to Americans.

[RainDog]

26. america has always benefitted from maintaining talented people here

this is what successful nations do - they attract top talent in various fields who compete for positions. Since the end of WWII, the U.S. has been a destination for researchers.

people in academia traditionally work all over the world, interacting with others in their fields. the competition is very fierce and there are not millions of people qualified to do these jobs.

this is nothing new... employing people from other nations to do research, etc. here. it's part of the mission of academia, to disseminate ideas regardless of borders.

America has traditionally disdained the educated and loved the get- rich-quick story. America lauds entertainers and athletes and follows their every bowel movement.

so, honestly, we have the culture the majority chooses. not everyone chooses to be a part of that culture, however.

[Democat]

30. What do you mean "NOW"? America became great because of immigrants!

Ever heard of Albert Einstein?

[amandabeech]

34. We cannot depend on imports forever in any category,

including science, technology and engineering.

My guess is that if we gave scholarships and forgave student loans for U.S. citizen and permanent resident students going into those fields, AND cut down on new crops of H-1Bs, we'd have a lot more home grown types studying in those fields.

You know, act like we really do want citizens to get involved.

Here's another thing. I come from a very, very small town. The kids who have gone to the better state U's come back saying that they cannot understand their instructors. It really has scared some kids off. Perhaps colleges & universities could insist that their teaching fellows take diction classes to get them to speak with an accent that is more intelligible to U.S. ears. I know that I've had problems understanding customer service reps on the phone. If I had had to take classes from them, I don't know that I'd have made it. In underground even in my day ('70s) students in the sciences had difficulty with their foreign TAs. I did make it through an East German calculus TA, however, after figuring out what a few bad pronunciations actually meant.

[crazylikafox]

8. My only son is a recent Phd who had to leave the US to find employment.

There's currently a glut of US Phd's (US citizens) who are looking for work. Hiring in the last 2 years was almost non-existent. And I'm talking Math & sciences, not English. Let's stabalize the employment situation first before we open the floodgates.

And a postscript: My boy just received an offer here in the states, so he's coming home in the fall. I'm so happy. But there are still many, many more still looking for work.

[zogofzorkon]

15. Our own citizens are bright enough and educated enough to be leaders in

science, technology and math. They just aren't bright enough or educated enough to run a country.

[RainDog]

27. that's not the way academia works

...and your son will have benefited from his experience living and working in another culture, I would bet.

[crazylikafox]

32. I don't understand your comment.

I was commenting on the American economy, and the fact that American universities have greatly reduced their hiring in the last two years due to the decimation of their trust funds and State financial support in this recession.

[w4rma]

12. Tighten the H/L-1/1B visas: good. "Immediate" green cards are dumb when we are in this recession. nt

[OhioChick]

14. +1 n/t

[hedgehog]

16. First, I want assurance that any American child has the same

educational opportunities as foreigners. For at least 30 years now, we have had a situation in which American engineering students graduate with a BS and immediately seek employment to begin paying off student loans. For many foreign students, seeking an advanced degree isn't a financial burden and in fact is a stepping stone to American citizenship. Is it any wonder so many of our engineering schools have so many foreign born faculty members?


On edit: I do have a friend whose daughter was given aid to study in an American university with the notion that she would take her training home to her own country. As it turned out, there were no jobs for her at home so she is now an American citizen. As my friend's daughter, I'm glad things worked out for her. I still have to ask, is this a good policy for us as a nation?

[Igel]

19. They do, in fact.

Many of the foreign students get some help from their countries, but that usually requires that they go home or repay it. I've known grad students who had to do that. In one case, her husband was not pleased, but wasn't about to force her back to Taiwan. He assumed the debt, and it wasn't a pretty picture.

A lot of others get support from their departments, and if they're at a public school they don't usually qualify for in-state tuition/fees so they're very expensive to support. In my department the faculty would have to decide between paying $14k in tuition/fees for a foreign student or $4k for a US resident. They often chose the foreign student, simply because they were better. They were better students, they had to take fewer remedial classes (well, except for the E. Asians, but their governments paid their way), and the outcome was higher quality researchers or whatever (again, except for many of the E. Asians--their best still sucked in my field).

During a graduate program, while you're enrolled at least half-time in a degree or certificate program, you usually don't have to pay, nor do you accrue any interest on, any government-backed student loans. I've known more than one undergrad who wasn't able to get a good enough job to pay off loans but was a good enough student to apply to a grad program and get significant support do precisely that in order to avoid having to start repaying their loans. The downside is that sometimes they do this and take out more loans.

Most Americans have far more opportunities to get into a US grad program than foreign students do. It's just that the best of the best (usually) apply here, so the competition can be grueling. But Americans will have better language skills, their bachelor's transfers more easily, they're cheaper in grad programs, there's no culture shock. They have no visa hurdles and for many no cultural impediments to going abroad to study, no nasty exchange-rate catastrophes. Americans have at least all the same opportunities--even in crappy schools--that foreign students have.

More than one foreign student that I've known has had to pass all sorts of rigorous tests to graduate high school, but that just forced them to do what was needed in any event--in the US nobody kicks the students' butts so they often don't take advantage of the opportunities that are there, and SAT prep courses tend to be courses on how to take the tests, not context. Americans have the right to be sucky students and graduate, they don't toe the line with parental authority to the same extent as many foreigners, so they slack. Slack like that in Poland or Pakistan or Brazil and you won't make the cut. In addition, many of the schools that foreign students go to don't do a great job of preparing them: East Europeans that I've known have had hefty reading lists and supplemental curricular materials to pass their tests because they knew full well that just going to class and getting good grades wouldn't guarantee them access to gymnasium or university. I have trouble seeing many American kids doing that. East Europeans, Asians, even S. Americans, but not North Americans.

However--and this is a big however--Americans still do better than many foreign students do. The reason seems to be that we're more willing to take risks and be creative, to disagree with established science and buck trends. While we're still playing catch up as undergrads, in grad school, where the students have already shown good mastery of the facts, American culture serves them well.

[RainDog]

28. not entirely true

tuition rates are astronomical for undergraduates as well as people in graduate (masters) professional programs.

education is subsidized by taxes, not by student loan burdens. but students also have to compete for positions more strenuously in those places that have sliding fee scales for students.

states have to balance budgets and public sector jobs that are a large employee of professional programs - social work, librarians, etc. are suffering across the nation and are reducing or freezing hiring and have been for more than a year.

this isn't the same situation as someone doing a PhD in chemistry, for example, because the career paths are different. A chemist will make far, far more money than someone with a masters in a field that is largely paid for by tax dollars, yet the debt burden is greater for the person whose talents are in social and public services.

[high density]

20. Barbara Boxer tried this a few years ago

June 2008

Boxer and Gregg Introduce Bill to Reverse High-Tech Brain Drain

Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) today introduced bipartisan legislation designed to improve U.S. technological competitiveness by allowing foreigners who graduate from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in high tech fields to obtain green cards if they have jobs waiting for them here in the U.S.

Senator Boxer said, “Ensuring that the U.S. is competitive in technology means making sure that future innovators are putting their knowledge to work here, not competing against us abroad. The best way to do that is to offer greencards to those foreign graduates with career opportunities in the U.S. I am proud to work with Senator Gregg to help keep America’s economy at the forefront of technological innovation.”

http://boxer.senate.gov/en/press/releases/060508.cfm

I'm hoping this bill goes just as far (nowhere.)

[MikeW]

21. Meanwhile ...

Back in the good ol USA ... there are lots of AMERICAN PhD grads that are unemployed or working in starbucks.

Just what we need in a recession.

Just another day in the USA when we dont take care of our own youth / young people again. We'd rather side line them
and get someone else in from overseas.

[Odin2005]

22. How about hiring the best and brightest AMERICAN CITIZENS, first!?!

:grr:

[Xipe Totec]

24. Sure.

That would be the ones holding Master and PhD degrees.

Once you exhaust that pool, what then?

Do you let the foreign students go back home? Let those other countries reap the rewards of our education system?

Or, do we hire them here. Make them American citizens, and keep those bright minds working for US?

[RainDog]

29. they are hired if they're the most qualified. n/t

[quakerboy]

25. Who works cheaper and undercuts the overall wage the most?

A newly naturalized US citizen with an advanced degree, or an H-1B or other visa'd foreign worker with an advanced degree?

I suspect that the naturalised citizen would actually raise wages, rather than undercutting them. They have the potential to knock the legs out from the already specious arguments that industry uses to import so many relatively cheaply paid H-1B workers.

I think this would be a good thing, in the end. I'd rather have them here on their own terms, with an investment here, rather than temporary and stuck with what the employer wants to do to them. And in general, I'd rather have more educated people here than not here.

[treestar]

33. Why do people not get that they would create jobs under them?

When Einstein came to the US do you think he took someone's job? No, he created hundreds.

Stupid short sighted zero sum game stuff - we've already alienated people with our 911 be-scared-of-all-immigrants thing, and it has contributed to harming the economy.

[Unvanguard]

36. Good. This will help make the US more prosperous. n/t