Seems pretty cool to make sure that American workers are given the first shot at the jobs that are available and that we don’t let companies import cheap labor at the expense of U.S. workers. We have a bad enough unemployment rate as it is. The Obama administration is taking the focus away from busting undocumented workers and prioritizing taking on the employers instead. After all, without job offers, undocumented workers simply have nowhere to go.
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have been battling for new restrictions in our immigration laws for the last three years. Their new proposed legislation, which drills down on the H-1B and L-1 visa programs that allow people who have special skills a quicker pass to enter the United States and work for local companies, puts the onus on companies. Under this proposed legislation, companies (not just the heavy importers of talent) have to swear that they have made a “good faith” effort to find an American worker first. The Department of Labor gets to spot check these efforts as well.
It all looks wonderful on paper, and when it comes to large segment of the economy, this effort seems to make a lot of sense. But here is the fly… make that a huge, slimy, dirt-encrusted cockroach… in the ointment: if growing new technology is the single biggest driver of U.S. job growth in the future (it is), then pick one: (i) hire an American who is sufficiently qualified and might help move this along or (ii) hire the best person on earth that you can who is likely to create vastly more value in creating that job-growing technology. And exactly how do you prove that you have in fact made that choice in a way that might stop a job-discrimination lawsuit or a government probe? What about letting the best person you can hire bring his/her spouse and kids or do we make workers sacrifice their families to work in the U.S. ?
To make matters worse, if the immigrant is so well-qualified that another U.S. company wants to hire him or her after they get here (to create even more value), or if the immigrant is ready for promotion to a new level (and a different job description based on excellence), the proposed law suggests that the process has to start all over again. And what happens when one of these tech geniuses opts to quit working for an established company and start something new and exciting that could create even more American jobs?
Most of our most successful immigrant tech entrepreneurs worked for U.S. companies for a few years before taking the big step. What’s more, it isn’t the “kids” who are/were doing most of this, but middle-aged and educated workers. Facing all of these deterrents, an immigrant may well prefer to bestow his or her competency on another company, in another country, that truly will take U.S. jobs away… or never even give America a chance to grow them at all.
The May 11th BusinessWeek (Vivek Wadhwa) makes the case ever-so-clearly as to why we need tech specialists as fast as we can bring them in (and as I have blogged repeatedly): “Immigrant workers are significantly more likely to launch new companies. Immigrant workers are also far more likely to launch technology companies. Technology companies have accounted for a disproportionate percentage of economic growth in the U.S. in the past four decades. And new companies hire far more new employees than old companies. In fact, companies less than five years old accounted for nearly all of the net jobs growth in the U.S. over the past two decades. Add those four facts together and it's easy to conclude that what the U.S. needs are more immigrant technology workers rather than fewer.”
Wadhwa wrote (BusinessWeek, November 25, 2008) earlier: “I published a research report back in 2006 showing that over 50 percent of Silicon Valley engineering and technology startups were founded by immigrants (as were 25 percent of such startups nationwide), I concluded that immigrants were more likely to be entrepreneurs.” If there were a single common component to where our immigration laws need to create wide and rapid tracks to U.S. residency (if not citizenship), it has to be among the educated and the experienced (and their families). Our engineering shortfall is catastrophic. Job growth in this country is stalled in so many sectors because hi-tech companies, from Microsoft and Google, from to H-P and IBM, simply cannot hire enough designing and implementing engineers.
Other proposals being considered by other legislators embrace immigrants who buy houses, or bring a minimum dollar investment and hire U.S. workers, or create new companies when they leave their visa’d jobs and create enough new jobs. The underlying bias in the marketplace gets nastier when you recognize that the bulk of these immigrants are not white people with European ethnicity, an unfortunate resonance with those favoring immigration reform as an effective method of reinforcing radial prejudice.
It’s time for America to pull out all the stops, hire the best and the brightest to create the next generations of job-creating technologies, and to stop dealing with “voter-optically-friendly, economy-destroying” policies. We need brains and invention! We need educated specialists! It’s time for our leaders to lead, not just follow those segments of our society willing to self-destruct in the name of “racial purity” or based on a fear that whites are a dwindling minority in this country. This effort is not about restaurant workers, drywall installers, cab drivers or ditch-diggers; this about technology advancements that put America back on top. This is about our future and the quality of our jobs and living environment. Somebody make the bad man stop!!! And let the smart woman fix this stupid policy, once and for all!
I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.
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