IMMIGRATION: Skilled workers, out in the cold

Immigration reform looks rather dead at the moment but the quandary of hundreds of thousands of skilled workers remains. So does the issue of what this country plans to do if it wants to retain its competitive edge in the decades to come. Following is a guest post by Vikas Chowdhry, a techie and blogger at Arthshastra.

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Last week, the immigration reform bill, grandiosely termed the "Grand Bargain," failed to gather enough votes and was put on the back burner. This bill had always been more of a Faustian bargain in the eyes of skilled legal non-immigrants because everyone involved in the debate knows that the problems and solutions for the skilled immigrants are vastly different from those of illegal immigrants and yet, the lawmakers insisted on having a single bill to solve all the immigration related problems.

There are all sorts of issues facing skilled legal non-immigrants (A legal non-immigrant is someone legally in the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa - more here), but here's the short version of how it works:

Skilled non-immigrants (Software Developers, Engineers, Doctors, MBAs, etc.) can apply for immigrant visas or green cards under the category called Employment Based (EB) immigration. There are multiple sub-categories within that called EB1, EB2, EB3 based on the skills and education of the potential immigrant. There is an upper limit of 140,000 visas for all EB categories combined, which is further subject to a per-country limit of 7%. So the citizens of the island of Mauritius, India and China each have 9800 visas available to them per year. When you consider the fact that all employment-based visa seekers, like Doctors, Programmers, Scientists and MBAs from a country like India or China have a total of 9800 visas available to them per year, the gravity of the situation and the seriousness of the backlogs becomes readily apparent. Every year, far more people apply for immigrant visas than the numbers available and the resultant bottleneck forces skilled, legal non-immigrants to wait for years in the queue.

In 2006, the U.S. government issued 1,266,264 immigrant visas, of which only 159,081 (12%) were issued to EB categories while 803,335 (63.4%) were issued for Family based categories. Just how many legal, skilled non-immigrants are stuck in the backlog? Conservative numbers put us at 300,000 - 500,000 while some estimates are as many as a million people. When you account for dependents on the primary applicants, you are looking at at least a million affected people, most of them from India and China.

Of course, there is a face behind every number. It is that of my friend's wife, who cannot work despite having an MS in Computer Science, because the H1B numbers have run out and her husband doesn't have a green card yet. Another friend of mine has a PhD but has to go back to India for 3 months on leave - unpaid, of course - until her H1B visa can start in October.

As for me, I went to grad school in the U.S., have been working for 5 years and have spent 7 years in the country legally, but there is still no hope in the near future that I'll get a green card. Many of my friends who moved to U.K. at the same time as I did are all citizens of that country. Many of them have even started their own companies. 

This dire situation prompted a bunch of skilled legal non-immigrants to start a group called Immigration Voice. Over the last couple of years, it's been trying to present these problems to U.S. lawmakers, many of whom are not even aware of these issues. Our hope was that they would understand the consequences of this massive backlog and would take steps to redress it. Instead, the bill that they came out with is best described by E. John Krumholtz, director of federal affairs at Microsoft, who said that the bill was “worse than the status quo, and the status quo is a disaster.” The biggest issue that the skilled legal non-immigrants had with this bill was that instead of taking steps to reduce the backlog, it actually would have made it worse.

Now that this bill is effectively dead and it is clear that there is no clear consensus in the U.S. Senate on how to solve the issue of illegal immigrants, one hopes that lawmakers would at least work on fixing the issues facing skilled legal immigrants, because the status quo on this issue hurts both the U.S. economy and the skilled legal workers.

Here are some of the reasons why lawmakers need to act now to fix the immigration process for skilled legal immigrants:

1. Skilled immigrants start new companies: According to the research done by Vivek Wadhwa at Duke university, the biggest benefit of skilled, non-immigrants accrues to the U.S. economy when they are allowed to grow roots in the country by granting them permanent resident status. Most skilled permanent residents in the U.S. started their productive life as skilled non-immigrants. However, they realized their entrepreneurial potential only when the permanent hanging sword of non-immigration was removed from their heads.
2. It is the equivalent of handing over first round draft picks to other countries: Another article in Business Week reflects on how skilled workers are getting disillusioned by the policies of the U.S. government and are thinking of making a beeline for other, more welcoming countries.The fact that most of us have decided to stick around despite wait times stretching into years is testament to the inherent attractiveness of the U.S. as a country, society and economy to skilled workers.
3. The current situation reduces the attractiveness of U.S. universities to international students: The situation we are facing is no secret in our native countries and as a consequence of the booming Indian economy and the uncertainty facing international graduates in getting work visas, fewer students are opting to come to the U.S. for graduate studies. In most graduate schools in the U.S., you will find a large number of international students slogging away in labs and classrooms. However, when they graduate, their biggest concern is whether there will be a work visa available for them.

It is no secret that one of the main reasons why the U.S. is miles ahead of every other country in innovating new products and services is its success in attracting talent from all other countries. With the status quo for the legal immigration process, that attractiveness could vastly diminish.

The media coverage of issues facing skilled non-immigrants is pathetic and hollow. Most journalists write about the number of H1-B visas when dealing with the issues concerning skilled non-immigrants, that is, if they write about them at all. Most media coverage is centered around the fate of 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. In most articles in mainstream newspapers, you will probably find a cursory paragraph about skilled legal immigrants. As far as I know, the Wall Street Journal and Business Week are the only two publications who have devoted some space to talk exclusively about legal skilled immigrants.

The biggest support for skilled non-immigrants has of course come from tech companies like Google and Microsoft. This is not surprising because these companies have thousands of immigrants working for them, they see their contribution and work ethic every day and chose to put their mouth where their money is. Some commentators like Thomas Friedman have been advocating an easier path to green cards for graduates of American universities for some time now. However, as this bill shows, all such arguments have fallen on deaf ears.

Considering the fact that most of the media have not discussed these issues in details, we hope that people reading this would remember that skilled, legal non-immigrants have a big stake in this debate and that the status quo does a grave injustice to their aspirations and hopes. We also hope to get more support from other immigrant groups and also from the highly influential and successful Indian-American community. Because this is not about preferential treatment, but about fair treatment for a group of people who are law abiding, who have always kept the faith in the American system and whose contribution to the American economy is simply too great to take for granted.

--Vikas Chowdhry

Comments

[Vikas]

Skilled legal non-immigrants are planning a unique protest for 10th July

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indian_green_card_hopefuls_now_plan_Gandhigiri_in_US/articleshow/2183334.cms
WASHINGTON: Hundreds of Indian high-skilled professionals in the US who have been on a roller coaster ride over the past month in their effort to get the green card will draw attention next week to their frustration -- with white flowers.

Can any journalist on this forum please provide us some guidance on how to get more media attention for this event?

[Jaya Kamlani]

Vikas & others waiting for green cards,

I wish you all good luck in your efforts to procure a green card. However, there is one recent event I want you to keep in mind that might slow down this process and make it more enduring: The recent bombings in Glassgow, Scotland and the failed bomb attacks in London. I expect immigration authorities to be now more cautious as they scrutinize each green card application. This is a reality check as these were skilled immigrants (medical doctors) involved in these plots... two of them being from India itself. I believe you should let the dust settle, give it a few months before you pick up your cause with the Congress, although I believe yours is a worthy cause to fight for. Meanwhile, garner all your support. Skilled immigrants is what made this country what it is, and skilled immigrants should model the future of America with new innovations.

Here is an editorial in today's New York Times related to this issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/07/opinion/07sat1.html

Editorial
"Immigration Malpractice" July 7, 2007
The prickliness and glacial ineptitude of the immigration system is old news to millions of would-be Americans. Immigrants who play by the rules know that the rules are stringent, arbitrary, expensive and very time-consuming. But even the most seasoned citizens-in-waiting were stunned by the nasty bait-and-switch the federal bureaucracy pulled on them this month. After encouraging thousands of highly skilled workers to apply for green cards, the government snatched the opportunity away.

The tease came in a bulletin issued by the State Department in June announcing that green cards for a wide range of skilled workers would be available to those who filed by July 2. That prompted untold numbers of doctors, medical technicians and other professionals, many of whom have lived here with their families for years, to assemble little mountains of paper. They got certified records and sponsorship documents, paid for medical exams and lawyers and sent their applications in. Many canceled vacations to be in the United States when their applications arrived, as the law requires.

Then they learned that the hope was effectively a hoax. The State Department had issued the bulletin to prod Citizenship and Immigration Services, the bureaucracy that handles immigration applications, to get cracking on processing them. The agency is notorious for fainting over paperwork — 182,694 green cards have been squandered since 2000 because it did not process them in time. That bureaucratic travesty is a tragedy, since the annual supply of green cards is capped by law, and the demand chronically outstrips supply. The State Department said it put out the bulletin to ensure that every available green card would be used this time.

After working through the weekend, the citizenship agency processed tens of thousands of applications. On Monday, the State Department announced that all 140,000 employment-based green cards had been used and no applications would be accepted.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, the definition of a hangdog bureaucracy, says the law forbids it to accept the applications. The American Immigration Lawyers Association says this interpretation is rubbish. It is preparing a class-action lawsuit to compel the bureaucracy to accept the application wave that it provoked.

The good news is that immigrants’ hope is pretty much unquenchable. Think of the hundreds of people standing in the rain in ponchos at Walt Disney World on Independence Day, joining the flood of new citizens now cresting across the country. They celebrated on July Fourth, but for many of them the magic date is July 30, when a new fee schedule for immigrants takes effect, drastically jacking up the cost of the American dream.

The collapse of immigration reform in the Senate showed the world what America thinks of illegal immigrants — it wants them all to go away. But the federal government, through bureaucratic malpractice, is sending the same message to millions of legal immigrants, too.

Jaya Kamlani

[Steve]

The current situation reduces the attractiveness of U.S. universities to international students:

Good. Maybe then American universities can go back to what their purpose is supposed to be - you know educating Americans. US universities have been very weak at reaching out to the poorer segments of American society - especially Blacks (unless that Black is a good Football or Basketball player).

Also fewer international students means fewer opportunities for terrorists to come over on student visas to gain access and learn stuff they later use against America in terrorist attacks.

[Alex]

Not all "skilled" workers are that skilled.

In fact many are substandard but cheap so the business hires them. This is especially true in the medical industry.

Here is a case where a foreign doctor allowed a patient to die because of his religion.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2007/05/when_your_docto.html

[Jaya Kamlani]

Steve & Alex,

I have always felt and stated that in the recent years America has ignored its own, and it is time the U.S government ensured that its own people received high education in technology and sciences so jobs are not outsourced. From what I have read of H1B visa abuse, I thought these visas should be capped and only given when there is a true shortage of skilled workers, so H1B visas are not misused. I met someone yesterday who told me of situations where resumes of professionals from India were padded with the number of years of experience so they could obtain an H1B visa. This is clearly an abuse that displaces an American worker. It is obvious that the American and Indian corporations have been playing monopoly games under the tables and keeping the Congress in the dark.

Then again, an Indian H1B visa holder who has worked for an American company for 4 - 5 years, played by the rules and contributed to the American society, needs to be given a chance to be heard and receive a green card. We must learn to appreciate the ones who are truly skilled and want to help build the American society. Who knows, like many South Asians in the past, they might come up with some innovations that might help take America into a new realm, a new frontier in this new millennium. In the recent past, many companies in Silicon Valley have been founded by Indians who employ Americans (including Indian-Americans). And if we look back over two hundred years, we will find America is a country built by immigrants or children of immigrants.

Jaya Kamlani

[Vikas]

Steve - most international students come to the US for graduate level studies. There is always enough financial aid to go around for that level and if an American student were to apply to a graduate school - I am pretty sure that he or she would not pay a dime. In fact, most grad schools provide some kind of work-study option that even gets you a decent stipend.

The problem is that there simply aren't enough American students applying to grad schools.

[Vikas]

Jaya - Has the H1B visa program been abused by some companies - yes it has been. But this is the irony of the entire issue. People who oppose granting green cards to skilled immigrants and H1B visas in the same breath don't realize that a lot of problems associated with the H1B visa program cannot be fixed without making sure that we also fix the process of granting green-cards to skilled professionals.

[Jaya Kamlani]

Vikas,

I commend you for taking a stance on the issuance of green cards and suggesting a fix to the H1B dilemma, a system that is clearly broken and in need of dire repair. This is what Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University has been calling for.

I believe there is a win-win situation for everyone caught in this predicament. If the US administration encourages Americans to go for high-level education in science and technology and simultaneouly also awards green cards to H1B visa holders who have proved themselves and contributed to the American economy in the last 5-some years, we would stop the bleeding of jobs that have occured due to outsourcing.

Also the 60% gains that corporations expected to realize from labor-cost reductions from outsourcing of jobs have not met with their expectations. The disappointing 10-15% cost reduction gains is having them reconsider the benefits of outsourcing. The prospects now looks better for American employees than they have in a decade. Their voices were heard this time around by their Congressmen.

Jaya Kamlani

[Jaya Kamlani]

“US facing reverse brain drain threat”
Source: Article by Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Hindustan Times August 23, 2007
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=050816e7-5f6f-4551-96cc-5d4109759097

One million skilled migrants are caught in a US green card backlog and a third are thinking of returning to their homeland. A new study warns the US may be about to experience a "reverse brain drain" of its technological knowhow.

The study, "Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog and a Reverse Brain Drain," warns of increasing frustration among skilled immigrants who have to wait for several years to become US permanent residents.

About 30 per cent of these immigrants, says the study's lead author Vivek Wadhwa of Harvard University, are Indians. As India's economic rises, many are increasingly open to returning to their home country creating "the potential for a sizeable reverse brain-drain from the US."

The study indicates the immigration backlog for skilled workers is much larger than had been earlier believed. Each step of the tortuous process by which a foreigner on a US worker's visa becomes a green card holder has a waiting list running into the hundreds of thousands.

The study estimates just over 500,000 employment-based immigrants are waiting for green cards. Roughly the same number of spouses and children are in a similar immigration limbo. The report concludes, "we obtain an estimate of the entire employment-based legal permanent residency queue in the US of 1.055 million." Many of the spouses are themselves skilled workers. An additional 126,421 green card applicants live outside the US.

The bottleneck is that the three categories of green cards these immigrants are eligible total a little over 120,000 visas a year. In other words, the backlog already represents "almost nine years' worth of employment visas."

The only solution is for the green card allotment to be increased, but the failure of the Bush administration's immigration reform bill in the US Congress put paid to this.
The New Immigrant Survey, has shown these immigrants, whose waiting can now stretch out over several years, are prone to depression.

It found 34.5 per cent of the immigrants said they were "either planning to leave the US or were uncertain about remaining." Indians "stuck in the backlog" have formed a number of organisations, like Immigration Voice, to publicise their plight.

Wadhwa's study warns an Asian outflow would seriously damage the US at a time when immigrants provide nearly a quarter of the US's most competitive patents. Dovelyn Agunias, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, says immigration entrepreneurship is also constrained.

Many tech-heavy services industries depend on "circular migration" with entrepreneurs moving back and forth across the world. The US nationalisation process strictly limits overseas travel on immigrants — one stage forces them to not leave the US for five years.
"A system that allows circulatory migration would be better for everyone."

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of immigrants finding opportunities in the two boom economies of India and China increasingly attractive. In China such people are called "sea turtles". In India they are labelled RNRI, Returning Non-resident Indians. Several websites already cater to the needs of such Indians and debate the merits of "reverse migration."

Desi industry is trying to cash in: the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers has set up the Association of Scientists of Indian Origin in the US to woo Indian-American engineers to work in the subcontinent. An estimated 40,000 RNRIs now work in India's infotech industry.

No visa power
200,000 skilled immigrants have applications for labour certificates pending, the first step towards a green card.
50,132 immigrants are waiting for Form I-140, the Petition for an Alien Work, filed by an employee after the labour certificate is issued.
327,556 immigrants are waiting for an I-485, the last petition for a permanent resident visa – a green card.
555,044 family members of immigrants are trying to get green cards
126,421 immigrants from all the above categories who are living outside the US.

Jaya Kamlani

[panditjugalkishoreshastri]

Mister Kamlani:

you can talk 50% faster than anyone can listen. I am shocked that despite exhaustive detailing of immigration issues you didn't reference the Fed forms required to make various immigration applications. You also overlooked references to Karzban's Manual of Immigration regulations which would give fisherman the tools to fish instead of fish itself.

But tell me this if reverse brain drain is on wouldn't urgency of the issue worry Executive Office of Immigration Review more than it does me. AAh, I almost forgot. Your altruistic concern about everyone else.

Well, here's a compliment to you Mister Malkani: I get a gliberal education listening to you

[jugalkishoreshastri]

Steve:

Every country has its own inseparable band of losers. There are unemployables in India despite the economic boom and there are and will be unemployables in the U.S. With or without immigrants there will still be whites, hispanics, blacks, indians, irish here who will be unemployable. Not just here but anywhere in the world. The trick of life is to be job worthy and not dance on two left feet and two right feet and hope divine intervention will make a ballerina out of a quadruped.

take a chill pill. chillax man

[Jaya Kamlani]

Panditji,

I have noticed you take pleasure in twisting my name, and even insisting on referring to me as a man, although I corrected you earlier. Sarcasm works in India. It is not appreciated in America and is considered a low down trait.

I am not a journalist, but have been a SAJA member for almost seven years and care for the organization and its members. Therefore I post related articles that I read in the news... Panditji, instead of bad-mouthing everyone, why don't you provide such voluntary service for SAJA as I do? If you continue ranting and raving as you have been doing, without providing solutions, people will tune you out.

Still, I believe you are intelligent and can contribute much to our discussion, if you care to. Make sure you stick to the subject and RESPECT all people on this forum. You mentioned you are a new blogger on this forum. So I have also noticed. It does not matter how you convey your thoughts on other forums, but on this forum I expect you to follow some basic etiquette.

Jaya Kamlani

[Jaya Kamlani]

Panditji,

I don't just write. I actually practice what I preach. I do a lot of good things for a lot of people out there... for the social causes. I do discuss a lot of social issues with various groups of people I am affiliated with. But if you would like to have this SAJA Forum platform to do you bidding, it is ALL YOURS. Meanwhile, I will try to restrain myself as much as possible for commenting on this blog, so you can catch up with all my comments - hundreds of them. Also, do take over my task of posting articles like I have been doing for the readers. They are time consuming, but I did it because I care for the readers of this forum. Now I pass the torch on to you. Please don't let the readers down.

Read as many articles as you can every day and post the news like I have been doing. It will free up my time so I can catch up with my projects. I look forward to reading every comment posted by you from hereon on SAJA Forum. Make sure you don't put a spin on words, because you cannot fool Indian-Americans. And if you make any reference to me in your comments, readers will wonder why. I am dropping out of the scene temporarily so you can show your good profile. Good Luck.

Jaya Kamlani

[panditjugalkishoreshastri]

jaya

That's a breach of contract. you will be held accountable for abandoning the ship without commander's permission. Your resignation request is denied.

rock n roll a lil, wiggle your toes a lil, laugh at things a lil and you will be okay.

don't get tangled up in blue. it's all in a day's game. Stop getting holier than thou a lil. and sing us all a native song from your pigtail and bobby sox years. make sure it's a nice melody.

sing a lil jive a lil dance with me jaya. sing sing sing a lil
buzz buzz buzz a lil kiss a lil buzz a lil buzz with me.....do re me a lil so la fa a lil....buzz a lil kiss a lil sing with me. ah.ha ho.ho

i love you too jaya

[Audrey]

International students pay higher fees to attend undergraduate institutions-- so thanks to us, your schools can fund additional programs and scholarships.

I am one of those deterred of returning to US for grad school. I'll try my luck elsewhere-- whats the point of investing time and resources into a graduate degree when you're likely to be kicked out in the end? Already made this mistake doing 4 yrs undergrad at UCLA, paying non-resident tuition.

Thanks for a great read!