Washington Report

August / September 2010 By: Tom Michael Volume 8 Number 4

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For the past five years, Congress has talked endlessly about the need for comprehensive immigration reform. But for myriad reasons, all of that talk has yet to yield action. The deeply polarizing immigration issue remains a top-tier concern in Washington, but no one—including President Obama—has found a formula for legislative success.

While the national discussion centers on the notion of “comprehensive reform,” some experts are advocating a narrower approach—one that could potentially help breathe life into the sluggish economy. Part of that strategy could mean making it easier for the brightest foreign college students to remain in the U.S. to work after graduation and altering the rules surrounding temporary work visas, among other things.

“We need to put the immigration system to the service of the economy,” said Demetrios Papademetriou, executive director of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
President Obama addressed this very issue in a June speech on immigration.

“We should make it easier for the best and the brightest to come to start businesses and develop products and create jobs,” he said. He also suggested that U.S. policy with respect to foreign students should be revamped.

“While we provide students from around the world visas to get engineering and computer science degrees at our top universities, our laws discourage them from using those skills to start a business or power a new industry right here in the United States,” he said. While some bemoan foreign work visas, for example, as contributing to domestic unemployment, others note that foreign-born brainpower is among the greatest job generators in America. For example, about 25 percent of U.S. engineering and technology startups between 1995 to 2005 had at least one founder who was foreign-born, according to a study by Vivek Wadhwa, a Harvard University researcher.

Over the same time period, immigrant-founded businesses in Silicon Valley comprised 52 percent of the total number of startups. That sounds like jobs gained—not lost.

The immigration policy stalemate, especially when it comes to retaining skilled workers and entrepreneurs, isn’t due to a lack of interest among members of Congress. Here are examples of legislation pending in Congress to help America stay competitive:
•H.R. 5658, the Securing Knowledge, Innovation, and Leadership [SKIL] Act of 2010. would more than double the number of employment-based immigrant visas available annually and would exempt employment-based immigrants seeking admission to work in “shortage occupations.” It would also nearly double the number of HB-1 visas issued annually from 60,000 per year to 115,000 per year. Introduced in July 2010, the legislation has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
•H.R. 5193, the StartUp Visa Act of 2010. This legislation would create a new unlimited visa category that would offer visas and permanent residency to individuals who commit to making a capital investment ($50,000 to $10 million under certain conditions) over a two to three-year year time frame. The bill aims to stimulate foreign investment, boost tax revenue and create job growth (with a special caveat that the employees must be those other than the applicant’s immediate family). The primary criticism of this bill is that it effectively allows wealthy foreigners to to buy their way into the U.S.
•H.R. 3687 is an amendment to replace the current visa lottery system (55,000 visas are currently focused on nationality and minimum work/educational degree requirements) with a system targeted at applicants with advanced degrees. The program proposed would include qualified immigrants who hold a masters or doctorate degree in the life sciences, the physical sciences, mathematics, technology or engineering.
• S. 628, the Conrad State 30 Improvement Act, would make permanent the J-1 visa waiver program. This change would enable foreign medical graduates to remain in the U.S. after completing their training. Under current law, Foreign Medical Graduates who reside and are employed in the U.S. on a J-1 Visa generally are required to return to their home country for two years as a prerequisite for applying for permanent residency or an H-1B Visa.

Tom Michael is Innovation’s Washington bureau chief.